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AN A K P € O N 



_r, t l,h\r/»-J hy 11. Mn.rwtt .fh;ia<lel,,hx 



* V 



\\ 



ODES 
/ 

OF ANACREON, 



TRANSLATED 

INTO ENGLISH VERSE, 
WITH NOTES. 



BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. 



OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HUGH MAXWELL, 
OPPOSITE CHRIST-CHURCH. 

1804 



4 V 



?*\%>" 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



IT may be necessary to mention, that in 
arranging the Odes, the Translator has adopted 
the Order of the Vatican MS. For those who 
wish to refer to the original, he has prefixed an 
Index, which marks the number of each Ode 
in Barnes and the other editions. 



TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 

THE PRINCE OF WALES. 



Sir, 

IN allowing me to dedicate this Work to 
your Royal Highness, you have conferred upon 
me an honour, which I feel very sensibly; and 
I have only to regret, that the pages which you 
have thus distinguished, are not more deserving 
of such illustrious patronage. 

Believe me, Sir, 

With every sentiment of respect, 

Your Royal Highness's 

Very grateful and devoted Servant, 

Thomas Moore. 



INDEX. 



ODE BARNES. 

1 ANAKPEX1N j^v ^ 63 

2 Aols f&oi Xvpw 'Oftqpx 48 

3 Ayg, ^aypxtyaiv xpisi 49 

4 Tov xpyvpov roptvav 17 

5 KxXq]t%vx ropiva-ov 18 

6 Srg^e? zrXixav zrar Ivpov 59 

7 Aeywriv xi yvvxixtg 11 

8 Oy fioi fttXu rx Fvyx 15 

9 AQic. pi rag 3-gs? <roi 31 

10 Tt rot B-iXag -zrotyiru 12 

11 EpcSlx xypivov tic, 10 

12 Oi (MV XXX-W K.V&YI&11V 13 

13 0sAft/, B-iXnf tptXticro&i . 14 

14 Ei QvXXx srxvlx oivopav ....... 32 

1 5 Epxa-ftin -zriXeix . ...... . . .9 

16 Ays, t^cjypxtywv xpt<,l ........ 28 

17 Tpx^t poi Bx6v\Xov Hta 29 



i8 Aolz pot, $o}s yvveciKig 21 

19 Uotfoc t>)v crxiviv BxOvXXx 22 

20 Ac Maasa rev Ep&flx 30 

21 'H yz pzXxtvoc. tsivzi 19 

22 H ToflstXx -sror g«-*j 20 

23 QzXoj Xzyziv Erpzieicti • . . 1 

24 tyvrig y-ifula rotv^oig . . 2 

25 2y pzv (pcXv) %z\t2v)v 33 

26 2v fA.iv Xzyzig roc Qy&yis .16 

27 E; Hrfttoig pzv \-7t7t6i 55 

28 e O cavyi^ o ?y& KvOvipns 45 

29 XxXzttov ro pz (piXy/rcti • • » • • • . 46 

30 E^ocovv cvolq Tpo%;ce,fyiv 44 

3 1 *YetKtv6ivn pz ^ctfoha 7 

32 Ett/ pvpavxtg rz^tvuig 4 

33 M.IG-6VVKT16K; TZTOT 6>pXig ........ 3 

34 Moocapi^opsv <rz ?sr\i\ ........ 43 

35 Ep&g zoot iv qohoin 40 

36 'O -zrXovlcs ztyi %pv<?ov 23 

37 Aicc vvkIojv lyxvJivloJ* 8 

38 Atxpov Tziapzv oivov 41 

39 <E><A&> yzpovju rzp7tvtv ........ 47 

40 ETSiCi) ,3polog tlvfaQw ......... 24 

41 T; y.ecXov £<r; fix }i£ziv • • . 66 



XI 



42 Tidta un £10*1)?% . 42 

43 Zn2^: zpoKrt 6 

44 T« £*2of r* rai tftflm 5 

45 'OTXt TailSi TCI* 0»'/4» 25 

46 l3s, ■ss-tf? I^po^ ^«»5»7aj • 37 

47 Ey» yjsi/v _«:> Ufu 

48 'Otxj j frcxgps iiraA^vj 26 

49 T* A<«f i tr^;; Bczjps 27 

50 O- z'/if -Mi'jj to? oiiot 39 

51 Mj u- Z v/m c::-J7X 3i 

52 T. Ui 7*5 7Jii2f : ' C.CXTKi.C . 35 

53 Or :*,i PSM :«./.« 5 4 

5-t O 7z::t; xtcs a zrca 35 

55 -7i2zj/-2c:i< u-t H;«j 53 

56 'O 7i 50 

5 7 A:z r.r vfSOffi — w\»t 5l 

. : \.:7c; 65 

59 Toy piXxic- m 52 

60 AjS. 2y.:z.~c> c:i? t 7i) 64 

61 TlcXa. u'.i /•::.> ; ;• ••...,... 56 

62 A* ... a -zxi 57 



Xll 

63 Tov EpeSJx yo&(> rev aZpoy 58 

64 TavufAott cr iX&tyr&o'hi ........ 60 

65 HcoXz 0pjjx<w, rt on pz 61 

66 Qioi&>v xvx<rcroij Kv?rp< 62 

67 O zrcci ■zactpdinov fiXinav 67 

68 Eya $' vt cc» Apschfcins . . . . • . . 68 

For the order of the rest, see the Notes. 



TO THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. 

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF ANACREON. 

In many a time, though many a minstrel sung, 
In many a version quaint, and many a tongue, 
The odes which erst the Teian bard divine, 
Rapt in the madd'ning power of love and wine, 
Trill'd to the melting lyre, what time around 
Admiring Athens heard the extatic sound ; 
Moore 1 at whose birth the tuneful sisters smil'd, 
Whose pen the loves direct, and graces mild, 
Thou, only thou, hast found the art to show 
The simple grandeur, and the chasten'd glow, 
Which fires the soul, but dies no modest cheek : 
Hence, sprung the laurels of the ancient Greek I 
Nay, if we read the Samian sage* aright, 
That souls through various bodies wend their flight, 
No more we wonder, when we all agree, 
Anacreon's spirit is transfus'd in thee. 

Mercutio. 

* Pythagoras. 



AN ODE 

BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



Em e^iyan; rxTrtiaty 
Tr,ioS 3-*t j u,i\ims 

IAm^oZ y-Afi-'y ixiilo, 
MiSvatt ii kxi Xvpi^ar 

y.-Slcv u y ipalze 
A~x>.a rvv-^4;£V5-a:y* 

O li -•;; TX tkKv: r,;r: 
Eare.'s;, '\>vyjK oiraf 

'O Oi /.i'JKX 7*6y$Vy0l7t 

Koitx <rvv qgookti s-M^xq, 
EJ./.s. r=";v'j y-;oflx' 
*H £i B-ixav xvxcrvx, 
203>IH ~o~ t|f OAvitxa 
Ecrepas-' AfdUBpSM b. 

I r7ty.li,'; I ■S.7CX7 :-T: 

- »; Angxpsai .z 

To* s ^*, 

T<, ysi ;> ^2» 



XVI 



To;? sp«c<," ra Aveti*, 
T* xv?rs*A# t* Av«<»> 

Am v' {l?v$n<?*s *$**, 

Ovk ip%5 vopVS S*3*«* y > 

'Or/, &*? «■* y * v£u ^ £v > 
Hap* rav o-opav xtttotfttH' 
MsU t*» *«*6>v yvveuxur 
£>S Avp»j y*g, *P 0V »W 

<I>;Ag&>v pcthisoi -advlm, 
Ov o-oQog pihahoc, eiftlj 



REMARKS 



ANACREON, 



1 HERE is little known with certainty 
of the life of Anacreon. Chamaeleon Hera- 
cleotes,* who wrote upon the subject, has 
been lost in the general wreck of ancient 
literature. The editors of the poet have 
collected the few trifling anecdotes, which 
are scattered through the extant authors of 
antiquity, and supplying the deficiency of 
materials by fictions of their own imagina- 
tion, they have arranged, what they call, a 
life of Anacreon. These specious fabrica- 
tions are intended to indulge that interest 
which we naturally feel in the biography of 

* He is quoted by Athenseus s» ta zxz^i t« AvxKpicvrof* 



18 



illustrious men; but it is rather a dangerous 
kind of illusion, as it confounds the limits 
of history and romance,* and is too often 
supported by unfaithful citation, f 

Our poet was born in the city of Teos, 
in the delicious region of Ionia, where every 
thing respired voluptuousness. J The time 

* The History of Anacreon, by Monsieur Gacon 
(le poete sans fard), is professedly a romance; nor 
does Mademoiselle Scuderi, from whom he borrowed 
the idea, pretend to historical veracity in her account 
of Anacreon and Sappho. These, then, are allowable. 
But how can Barnes be forgiven, who, with all the 
confidence of a biographer, traces every wandering 
of the poet, and settles him in his old age at a country 
villa near Teos ? 

f The learned Monsieur Bayle has detected some 
infidelities of quotation in Le Fevre. See Dictionaire 
Historique, Sec. Madame Dacier is not more accurate 
than her father : they have almost made Anacreon 
prime minister to the monarch of Samos. 

\ The Asiatics were as remarkable for genius as for 
luxury. " Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fecere 
Poetse, Anacreon, inde Mimnermus et Antimachus," 
&c. Solinus. 



19 



of his birth appears to have been in the sixth 
century before Christ,* and he flourished 
at that remarkable period, when, under the 
polished tyrants Hipparchus and Pplycrates, 
Athens and Samos were the rival asylums of 
genius. The name of his father is doubt- 
ful, and therefore cannot be very interesting. 
His family was, perhaps, illustrious; but 
those who discover in Plato that he was a 
descendant of the monarch Codrus, exhibit, 
as usual, more zeal than accuracy.! 



* I have not attempted to define the particular 
Olympiad, but have adopted the idea of Bayle, who 
says, " Je n'ai point marque d'Olympiade ; car pour 
un homme qui a vecu 85 ans, il me semble que Ton 
ne doit point s'enfermer dans des bornes si etroites." 

t This mistake is founded on a false interpretation 
of a very obvious passage in Plato's Dialogue on 
Temperance; it originated with Madame Dacier, 
and has been received implicitly by many. Gail, a 
late editor of Anacreon, seems to claim to himself 
the merit of detecting this error ; but Bayle had 
observed it before him. 



20 



The disposition and talents of Anacreon 
recommended him to the monarch of Samos, 
and he was formed to be the friend of such 
a prince as Polycrates. Susceptible only 
to the pleasures, he felt not the corruptions 
of the court; and while Pythagoras fled 
from the tyrant, Anacreon was celebrating 
his praises on the lyre. We are told too 
by Maximus Tyrius, that by the influence 
of his amatory songs, he softened the mind 
of Polycrates into a spirit of benevolence 
towards his subjects.* 

The amours of the poet, and the rival - 
ship of the tyrant, f I shall pass over in 

* AvoiKpzov Xccfiioig IleXvxpoLTViv *ifttpa<?i» Maxim. 
Tyr. § 21. Maximus Tyrius mentions this among 
other instances of the influence of poetry. If Gail 
had read Maximus Tyrius, how could he ridicule 
this idea in Moutonnet, as unauthenticated ? 

f In the romance of Clelia, the anecdote to which I 
allude is told of a young girl, with whom Anacreon 
fell in love while she personated the god Apollo in 



21 

silence; and there are few, I presume, who 
will regret the omission of most of those 
anecdotes, which the industry of some edi- 
tors has not only promulged, but discussed. 
Whatever is repugnant to modesty- and vir- 
tue is considered in ethical science, by a 
supposition very favourable to humanity-, 
as impossible ; and this amiable persuasion 
should be much more strongly entertained, 
where the transgression wars with nature 
as well as virtue. But why are we not 
allowed to indulge in the presumption? 
Why are we officiously reminded that there 
have been such instances of depravity : 

Hipparchus, who now maintained at 
Athens the power which his father Pisis- 
tmtus had usurped, was one of those ele- 
gant princes who have polished the fetters 

a mask. But here Mademoiselle Scuderi consulted 
nature more than truth. 



22 



of their subjects. He was the first, accord- 
ing to Plato, who edited the poems of Ho- 
mer, and commanded them to be sung by 
the rhapsodists at the celebration of the 
Panathenaea. As his court was the galaxy 
of genius, Anacreon should not be absent. 
Hipparchus sent a barge for him; the poet 
embraced the invitation, and the muses and 
the loves were wafted with him to Athens.* 
The manner of Anacreon 's death was 
singular. We are told that in the eighty- 
fifth year of his age he was choked by a 
grape- stone;f and however we may smile 

* There is a very interesting French poem founded 
upon this anecdote, imputed to Desyvetaux, and 
called " Anacreon Citoyen." 

t Fabricius appears not to trust very implicitly in 
this story. " Uvae passse acino tandem suffocatus, 
si credimus Suidse in owottoty)?; alii enim hoc mortis 
genere periisse tradunt Sophoclem." Fabricii Bib- 
bliothec. Grxc. lib. ii. cap. 15. It must be confessed 
that Lucian, who tells us that Sophocles was choked 
by a grape-stone> in the very same treatise mentions 



23 



at their enthusiastic partiality, who pretend 
that it was a peculiar indulgence of Heaven 
which stole him from the world by this 
easy and characteristic death, we cannot 
help admiring that his fate should be so 
emblematic of. his disposition. Caelius 
Calcagninus alludes to this catastrophe in 
the following epitaph on our poet : 

* Then, hallow'd Sage, those lips which pour'd along 
The sweetest lapses of the cygnet's song, 

A grape has clos'd forever I 
Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb. 
Here let the rose he lov'd with laurels bloom, 

In bands that ne'er shall sever ! 

the longevity of Anacreon, and yet is silent on the 
manner of his death. Could he have been ignorant 
of such a remarkable coincidence, or, knowing, could 
he have neglected to remark it? See Regnier's in- 
troduction to his Anacreon. 

* At te, sancte senex, acinus sub tartara misit ; 
Cygneas clausit qui tibi vocis iter. 
Vos, hedersc, tumulum, tumulum vos cingite lauri, 
Hoc rosa perpetuo vernet odora loco ; 



24 



But far be thou, oh I far, unholy vine, 

By whom the favourite minstrel of the Nine 

Expir'd his rosy breath ; 
Thy god himself now blushes to confess, 
Unholy vine I he feels he loves thee less, 

Since poor Anacreon's death ! 

There can scarcely be imagined a more 
delightful theme for the warmest specula- 
tions of fancy to wanton upon, than the 
idea of an intercourse between Anacreon 
and Sappho. I could wish to believe that 
they were cotemporary : any thought of an 
interchange between hearts so congenial in 
warmth of passion and delicacy of genius, 
gives such play to the imagination, that 



At vitis procul hinc, procul hinc odiosa facessat, 
Quse causam dirse protulit, uva, necis, 

Creditur ipse minus vitem jam Bacchus amare, 
In vatem tantum qua fuit ausa nefas. 

Caelius Calcagninus has translated or imitated the 
epigrams u$ mv Mvpwo? /3»v, which are given under 
the name of Anacreon. 



25 



the mind loves to indulge in it; but the 
vision dissolves before historical truth ; 
and Chamseleon and Hermesianax, who 
are the source of the supposition, are 
considered as having merely indulged in 
a poetical anachronism.* 

To infer the moral dispositions of a poet 
from the tone of sentiment which pervades 
his works, is sometimes a very fallacious 
analogy : but the soul of Anacreon speaks 
so unequivocally through his odes, that we 
may consult them as the faithful mirrors of 

* Barnes is convinced of the synchronism of 
Anacreon and Sappho; but very gratuitously. In 
citing his authorities, it is strange that he neglected 
the line which Fulvius Ursinus has quoted, as of 
Anacreon, among the testimonies to Sappho: 

Eipi Aas&yy iteccpetg ~Zot7r(p0 -aot^hvov a^vQavtv. 

Fabricius thinks that they might have been cotem- 
porary, but considers their amour as a tale of 
imagination. Vossius rejects the idea entirely: 
as also Olaus Borrichius, &c. &c. 



26 



his heart.* We find him there the elegant 
voluptuary, diffusing the seductive charm 
of sentiment over passions and propensities 
at which rigid morality must frown. His 
heart, devoted to indolence, seems to think 
that there is wealth enough in happiness, but 

* An Italian poet, in some verses on Belleau's 
translation of Anacreon, pretends to imagine that 
our bard did not feel as he wrote. 

Lyxum, Venerem, Cupidinemque 
Senex lusit Anacreon poeta. 
Sed quo tempore nee capaciores 
Rogabat cyathos, nee inquietis 
Urebatur amoribus, sed ipsis 
Tantum versibus et jocis amabat, 
Nullum prje se habitum gerens amantis. 

To Love and Bacchus ever young, 

While sage Anacreon touch'd the lyre, 
He neither felt the loves he sung, 

Nor fiird his bowl to Bacchus higher. 
Those flowery days had faded long, 

When youth could act the lover's part; 
And passion trembled in his song, 

But never, never, reach'd his heart. 



27 



seldom happiness enough in wealth ; and the 
cheerfulness with which he brightens his old 
age is interesting and endearing: like his 
own rose, he is fragrant even in decay. 
But the most peculiar feature of his mind is 
that love of simplicity, which he attributes 
to himself so very feelingly, and which 
breathes characteristically through all that 
he has sung. In truth, if we omit those 
vices in our estimate, which ethnic religion 
not only connived at, but consecrated, we 
shall say that the disposition of our poet 
was amiable; his morality was relaxed, 
but not abandoned; and Virtue, with her 
zone loosened, may be an emblem of the 
character of Anacreon.* 

* Anacreon's character has been variously coloured. 
Barnes lingers on it with enthusiastic admiration, 
but he is always extravagant, if not sometimes even 
profane. Monsieur Baillet, who is in the opposite 
extreme, exaggerates too much the testimonies 
which he has consulted; and we cannot surely 



28 



Of his person and physiognomy time has 
preserved such uncertain memorials, that 
perhaps it were better to leave the pencil 
to fancy; and few can read the Odes of 
Anacreon without imagining the form of 
the animated old bard, crowned with roses, 
and singing to the lyre ; but the head pre- 
fixed to this work* has been considered 

agree with him when he cites such a compiler as 
Athenseus, as " un des plus savans critiques de 
l'antiquite." Jugement des Seavans, M.CV. 

Barnes could not have read the passage to which 
he refers, when he accuses Le Fevre of having cen- 
sured our poet's character in a note on Longinus; 
the note in question is manifest irony, in allusion to 
some reprehension which Le Fevre had suffered for 
his Anacreon; and it is evident that praise rather 
than censure is intimated. See Johannes Vulpius 
de Utilitate Poetices, who vindicates our poet's 
reputation. 

* It is taken from the Bibliotheca of Fulvius 
Ursinus. Bellorius has copied the same head into 
his Imagines. Johannes Faber, in his description of 
the coin of Ursinus, mentions another head on a very- 
beautiful cornelian, which he supposes was worn in 



29 



so authentic, that we scarcely could be 
justified in the omission of it; and some 
have thought that it is by no means defici- 
ent in that benevolent suavity of expression, 
which should characterize the countenance 
of such a poet. 

After the very enthusiastic eulogiums 
bestowed by the ancients and moderns 
upon the poems of Anacreon,* we need not 

a ring by some admirer of the poet. In the Incono- 
graphia of Canini there is a youthful head of Anacreon 
from a Grecian medal, with the letters TEIOS around 
it ; on the reverse there is a Neptune, holding a spear 
in his right hand, and a dolphin in the left, with the 
word TIANfltN, inscribed, " Volendoci denotare (says 
Canini) che quelli cittadini la coniassero in honore del 
suo compatriota poeta." There is also among the 
coins of De Wilde one, which, though it bears no 
effigy, was probably struck to the memory of Ana- 
creon. It has the word THI12N, incircled with an ivy 
crown. "At quidnirespicithaec corona Anacreon tern, 
nobilem lyricum ?" De Wilde. 

* Besides those which are extant, he wrote hymns, 
elegies, epigrams, Sec. Some of the epigrams still 



30 



be diffident in expressing our raptures at 
their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them 
the most polished remains of antiquity.* 



exist. Horace alludes to a poem of his upon the 
rivalry of Circe and Penelope in the affections of 
Ulysses, lib. i. od. 17. The scholiast upon Nicander 
cites a fragment from a poem upon sleep by Anacreon, 
and attributes to him likewise a medicinal treatise. 
Fulgentius mentions a work of his upon the war be- 
tween Jupiter and the Titans, and the origin of the 
consecration of the eagle. 

* See Horace, Maximus Tyrius, &c. " His style 
(says Scaliger) is sweeter than the juice of the Indian 
reed." Poetices lib. i. cap. 44. " From the softness 
of his verses (says Olaus Borrichius) the ancients 
bestowed on him the epithets sweet, delicate, grace- 
ful, &c." Dissertationes Academics, de Poetis. Diss. 
2. Scaliger again praises him in a pun; speaking of 
the ptXog, or ode, " Anacreon autem non solum dedit 
hsec [AiM sed etiam in ipsis mella." See the passage 
of Rapin, quoted by all the editors. I cannot omit 
citing the following very spirited apostrophe of the 
author of the Commentary, prefixed to the Parma 
edition: " O vos sublimes animse, vos Apollinis 
alumni, qui post unum Alcmanem in tota Hellade 
lyricam poesim exsuscitastis, coluistis, amplificastis, 



31 



They are all beauty, all enchantment.* He 
steals us so insensibly along with him, that 
we sympathize even in his excesses. In his 
amatory odes there is a delicacy of compli- 
ment not to be found in any other ancient 
poet. Love, at that period, w T as rather an 
unrefined emotion; and the intercourse of 
the sexes was animated more by passion 
than sentiment. They knew not those little 
tendernesses which form the spiritual part 
of affection; their expression of feeling 

quaeso vos an ullus unquam fuerit vates qui Teio 
cantori vel naturx candore vel metri suavitate palmam 
prseripuerit." See likewise Vincenzo Gravini della 
Rag. Poetic, libro primo, p. 97. Among the Ritratti 
del Cavalier Marino, there is one of Anacreon 
beginning Cingetemi la fronte, &c. Sec. 

* " We may perceive," says Vossius, " that the 
iteration of his words conduces very much to the 
sweetness of his style." Henry Stephen remarks 
the same beauty in a note on the forty -fourth Ode. 
This figure of iteration is his most appropriate grace. 
The modern writers of Juvenilia and Basia have 
adopted it to an excess which destroys the effect. 



32 



was therefore rude and unvaried, and the 
poetry of love deprived of its most capti- 
vating graces. Anacreon, however, attained 
some ideas of this gallantry; and the same 
delicacy of mind which led him to this re- 
finement, prevented him from yielding to 
the freedom of language, which has sullied 
the pages of all the other poets. His 
descriptions are warm; but the warmth 
is in the ideas, not the words. He is 
sportive without being wanton, and ardent 
without being licentious. His poetic inven- 
tion is most brilliantly displayed in those 
allegorical fictions, which so many have 
endeavoured to imitate, because all have 
confessed them to be inimitable. Simplicity 
is the distinguishing feature of these odes, 
and they interest by their innocence, while 
they fascinate by their beauty; they are, 
indeed, the infants of the Muses, and may 
be said to lisp in numbers. 



33 

I shall not be accused of enthusiastic par- 
tiality by those who have read and felt the 
original ; but to others I am conscious that 
this should not be the language of a trans- 
lator, whose faint reflection of these beauties 
can but little justify his admiration of them. 

In the age of Anacreon music and poetry 
were inseparable. These kindred talents 
were for a long time associated, and the 
poet always sung his own compositions to 
the lyre. It is probable that they were not set 
to any regular air, but rather a kind of musi- 
cal recitation, which was varied according 
to the fancy and feelings of the moment.* 

* In the Paris edition there are four of the original 
odes set to music, by Citizens Le Sueur, Gossec, 
Mehul, and Cherubini. " On chante du Latin et de 
l'ltalien," says Gail, " quelquefois meme sans les 
entendre; qui empeche que nous ne chantions des 
odes Grecques?" The chromatic learning of these 
composers is very unlike what we are told of the 
simple melody of the ancients ; and they have all 
mistaken the accentuation of the words. 



34 



The poems of Anacreon were sung at ban- 
quets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, 
who tells us that he heard one of the odes 
performed at a birth day entertainment.* 

The singular beauty of our poet's style, 
and perhaps the careless facility with which 
he appears to have trifled, have induced, as 
I remarked, a number of imitations. Some 
have succeeded with wonderful felicity, as 
may be discerned in a few odes which are 
attributed to writers of a later period. But 
none of his emulators have been so danger- 
ous to his fame as those Greek ecclesiastics 
of the early ages, who, conscious of infe- 
riority to their prototypes, determined on 
removing the possibility of comparison, 
and, under a semblance of moral zeal, 

* The Parma commentator is rather careless in 
referring to this passage of Aulus Gellius (lib. xix. 
cap. 9.) The ode was not sung by the rhetorician 
Julianus, as he says, but by the minstrels of both 
sexes, who were introduced at the entertainment. 



35 



destroyed the most exquisite treasures of 
antiquity.* Sappho and Alcaeus were 
among the victims of this violation; and 
the sweetest flowers of Grecian literature 
fell beneath the rude hand of ecclesiastical 
presumption. It is true they pretended that 
this sacrifice of genius was canonized by 
the interests of religion ; but I have already 
assigned the most probable motive ;j and 
if Gregorius Nazianzenus had not written 
Anacreontics, we might now perhaps have 

* See what Colomesius, in his " Literary Trea- 
sures," has quoted from Alcyonius de Exilio ; it 
may be found in Baxter. Colomesius, after citing 
the passage, adds, " Hsec auro contra cara non potui 
non apponere." 

f We may perceive by the beginning of the first 
hymn of Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon 
and Sappho his models of composition. 

Ayg pot Xiyiia (pofpiy% 
MiTec TqtoLV ccoidecV) 
MsTflt Az<r£ixv rg ftoXnccv, 

Margunius and Damascenus were likewise authors 
of pious Anacreontics. 



36 



the works of the Teian unmutilated, and be 
empowered to say exultingly with Horace, 

Nee si quid olim lusit Anacreon 
Delevit aetas. 

The zeal by which these bishops professed 

to be actuated, gave birth more innocently, 

indeed, to an absurd species of parody, as 

repugnant to piety as it is to taste, where 

the poet of voluptuousness was made a 

preacher of the gospel, and his muse, like 

the Venus in armour at Lacedasmon, was 

arrayed in all the severities of priestly 

instruction. Such was the " Anacreon 

Recantatus," by Carolus de Aquino, a 

Jesuit, published 1701, which consisted 

of a series of palinodes to the several songs 

of our poet. Such too was the Christian 

Anacreon of Patrignanus, another Jesuit,* 

* This, perhaps, is the " Jesuita quidam Grseculus" 
alluded to by Barnes, who has himself composed an 
Aveucpiav Xpifiayos, as absurd as the rest, but some- 
what more skilfully executed. 



37 



who preposterously transferred to a most 
sacred subject all that Anacreon had sung 
to festivity. 

His metre has been very frequently 
adopted by the modern Latin poets. 
Scaliger, Taubmannus, Barthius,* and 
others, have evinced, that it is by no 
means uncongenial with that language, f 
The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, 

* I have seen somewhere an account of the MSS. 
of Barthius, written just after his death, which 
mentions many more Anacreontics of his than I 
believe have ever been published. 

f Thus too Albertus, a Danish poet : 

Fidii tui minister 
Gaudebo semper esse 
Gaudebo semper illi 
Litare thure mulso ; 
Gaudebo semper ilium 
Laudare pumilillis 
Anacreonticillis. 

See the Danish poets collected by Rostgaard. These 
pretty littlenesses defy translation. There is a very 
beautiful Anacreontic by Hugo Grotius. See Lib. i. 
Farraginis. 



38 



scarcely deserve the name; they are glit- 
tering with conceits, and, though often 
elegant, are always laboured. The beauti- 
ful fictions of Angerianus* have preserved 
more happily than any the delicate turn of 
those allegorical fables, which, frequently 
passing through the mediums of version 
and imitation, have generally lost their 
finest rays in the transmission. Many of 
the Italian poets have sported on the sub- 
jects, and in the manner of Anacreon. 
Bernardo Tasso first introduced the metre, 
which was afterwards polished and enriched 
by Chabriera and others, f If we may judge 
by the references of Degen, the German 
language abounds in Anacreontic imita- 
tions : and Hagedornf is one among many 

* From Angerianus, Prior has taken his most 
elegant mythological subjects. 

t See Crescimbeni, Historia della Volg. Poes. 

| " L'aimable Hagedorn vaut quelquefois Ana- 
creon." Dorat, Idee de la Poesie Allemande. 



39 

who have assumed him as a model. La 
Farre, Chaulieu, and the other light poets 
of France, have professed too to cultivate 
the muse of Teos; but they have attained 
all her negligence with little of the grace 
that embellishes it. In the delicate bard of 
Schiras* we find the kindred spirit of 
Anacreon : some of his gazelles, or songs, 
possess all the character of our poet. 

We come now to a retrospect of the 
editions of Anacreon. To Henry Stephen 
we are indebted for having first recovered 
his remains from the obscurity in which 
they had reposed for so many ages. He 
found the seventh Ode, as we are told, on 
the cover of an old book, and communicated 
it to Victorius, who mentions the circum- 

* See Toderini on the learning of the Turks, as 
translated by de Cournard. Prince Cantemir has 
made the Russians acquainted with Anacreon. See 
his Life, prefixed to a translation of his Satires, by 
the Abbe de Guasco. 



40 



stance in his " Various Readings." Stephen 
was then very young; and this discovery 
was considered by some critics of that day 
as a literary imposition.* In 1554, however 
he gave Anacreon to the world, f accompa- 
nied with annotations and a Latin version 
of the greater part of the odes. The learned 
still hesitated to receive them as the relics 
of the Teian bard, and suspected them to 
be the fabrication of some monks of the 
sixteenth century. This was an idea from 

*Robertellus,in his work "DeRatione corrigendi," 
pronounces these verses to be the triflings of some 
insipid Graecist. 

t Ronsard commemorates this event : 

Je vay boire a Henri Etienne 

Qui des enfers nous a rendu, 

Du vieil Anacreon perdu, 

La douce lyre Teienne. — Ode xv. Book 5. 

I fill the bowl to Stephen's name, 

Who rescu'd from the gloom of night 

The Teian bard of festive fame, 
And brought his living lyre to light. 



41 



which the classic muse recoiled; and the 
Vatican MS. consulted by Scaliger and 
Salmasius, confirmed the antiquity of most 
of the poems. A very inaccurate copy of 
this MS. was taken by Isaac Vossius, and 
this is the authority which Barnes has 
followed in his collation; accordingly he 
misrepresents almost as often as he quotes ; 
and the subsequent editors, relying upon 
him, have spoken of the manuscript with 
not less confidence than ignorance. The 
literary world has at length been gratified 
with this curious memorial of the poet, by 
the industry of the Abbe Spaletti, who, in 
1781, published at Rome a fac-simile of 
the pages of the Vatican manuscript, which 
contained the odes of Anacreon.* 

* This manuscript, which Spaletti thinks as old 
as the tenth century, was brought from the Palatine 
into the Vatican library ; it is a kind of anthology 
of Greek epigrams ,- and in the 676th page of it are 
found the np>ict(x&ioc <rvfi7ro<?ictx.ci of Anacreon. 



42 



Monsieur Gail has given a catalogue of 
all the editions and translations of Anacreon. 
I find their number to be much greater than 
I could possibly have had an opportunity of 
consulting. I shall, therefore, content myself 
with enumerating those editions only which 
I have been able to collect; they are very few, 
but I believe they are the most important. 

The edition by Henry Stephen, 1554, at 
Paris — the Latin version is by Colomesius 
attributed to John Dorat.* 

The old French translations, by Ronsard 
and Belieau — the former published in 1555, 
the latter in 1556. It appears that Henry 
Stephen communicated his manuscript of 

* " Le meme (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avoit 
possede un Anacreon, ou Scaliger avoit marque de 
sa main, qu' Henri Etienne n'etoit pas 1'auteur de la 
version Latine des odes de ce poete, mais Jean 
Dorat." Paulus Colomesius, Particularites. 

Colomesius, however, seems to have relied too 
implicitly on Vossius — almost all these Particularites 
begin with " M. Vossius m'a dit." 



43 



Anacreon to Ronsard before he published 
it, by a note of Muretus upon one of the 
sonnets of that poet.* 

The edition by Le Fevre, 1660. 

The edition by Madame Dacier, 1681, 
with a prose translation.! 

The edition by Longepierre, 1684, with 
a translation in verse. 

The edition by Baxter, London, 1695. 

A French translation by La Fosse, 1704. 

" L'Histoire des Odes d' Anacreon," by 
Monsieur Gacon; Rotterdam, 1712. 

A translation in English verse, by several 
hands, 1713, in which the odes by Cowley 
are inserted. 

The edition by Barnes; London, 1721. 

* " La fiction de ce sonnet comme l'auteur meme 
m'a dit, est prinse d'une ode d' Anacreon, encore non 
imprime, qu'il a depuis traduit a-v pi* <piM ■fcihibav" 

t The author of Nouvelles de la Repub. des Lett, 
praises this translation very liberally. I have always 
thought it vague and spiritless. 



44 

The edition by Dr. Trapp, 1733, with a 
Latin version in elegiac metre. 

A translation in English verse, by John 
Addison, 1735. 

A collection of Italian translations of 
Anacreon, published at Venice, 1736, 
consisting of those by Corsini, Regnier,* 
Salvini, Marchetti, and one by several 
anonymous authors. f 

A translation in English verse, by 
Fawkes and Doctor Broome, 1760. J 

* The notes of Regnier are not inserted in this 
edition ; they must be interesting, as they were for 
the most part communicated by the ingenious 
Menage, who, we may perceive, bestowed some 
research on the subject by a passage in the 
Menagiana — " C'est aussi lui (M. Bigot) qui s'est 
donne la peine de conferer des manuscrits en Italie 
dans le terns que je travaillois sur Anacreon." 
Menagiana, seconde partie. 

f I find in Haym's Notizia de' Libri rari, an Italian 
translation mentioned, by Cappone in Venice, 1670. 

^ This is the most complete of the English 
translations. 



45 



Another, anonymous, 1768. 

The edition by Spaletti at Rome, 1781; 
with the fac-simile of the Vatican MS. 

The edition by Degen, 1786, who 
published also a German translation of 
Anacreon, esteemed the best. 

A translation in English verse, by Ur- 
quhart, 1787. 

The edition by Citoyen Gail, at Paris, 
7th year, 1799, with a prose translation. 



ODES 



ANACREON. 



ODE I. 



I saw the smiling bard of pleasure, 
The minstrel of the Teian measure; 
'Twas in a vision of the night, 
He beam'd upon my wondering sight; 
I heard his voice, and warmly prest 
The dear enthusiast to my breast. 

This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican 
manuscript, which attributes it to no other poet than 
Anacreon. They who assert that the manuscript 
imputes it to Basilius, have been misled by the 
words Tn ccvm fiuo-iXixas in the margin, which are 
merely intended as a title to the following ode. 
Whether it be the production of Anacreon or not, 
it has all the features of ancient simplicity, and is a 
beautiful imitation of the poet's happiest manner. 



48 

His tresses wore a silvery die, 
But beauty sparkled in his eye ; 
Sparkled in his eyes of fire, 
Through the mist of soft desire. 
His lip exhal'd, when'er he sigh'd, 
The fragrance of the racy tide ; 

Sparkled in his eyes of fire. 

Through the mist of soft desire.] " How could he 
know at the first look (says Baxter) that the poet 
was (piXzvvos ?" There are surely many tell-tales of 
this propensity; and the following are the indices, 
which the physiognomist gives, describing a disposi- 
tion perhaps not unlike that of Anacreon : Otpfatyot 

tvrrovivToii* an £s a^iKot) an xo&Kxpyoi, an Qvcrws (patv^s, 
are ecpatroi. Adamantius. " The eyes that are humid 
and fluctuating show a propensity to pleasure and 
love; they bespeak too a mind of integrity and 
beneficence, a generosity of disposition, and a 
genius for poetry." 

Baptista Porta tells us some strange opinions 
of the ancient physiognomists on this subject, 
their reasons for which were curious, and perhaps 
not altogether fanciful. Vide Physiognom. Johan. 
Baptist. Portse. 



49 



And, as with weak and reeling feet 
He came my cordial kiss to meet, 
An infant, of the Cyprian band, 
Guided him on with tender hand. 
Quick from his glowing brows he drew 
His braid, of many a wanton hue ; 
I took the braid of wanton twine, 
It breath'd of him and blush'd with wine! 

I took the braid of wanton twine, 

It breath'd of him, lzfc.~\ Philostratus has the same 
thought in one of his Eparixet, where he speaks of 
the garland which he had sent to his mistress. Et 
^£/3aAg< ri (piXoi xctptfytrQxi, ret Xw$/xvx civTi7rz{Lt.Tpov, pqxiTi 
'zsnovia. gohuv povov c&XXx xui ca. " If thou art inclined 
to gratify thy lover, send him back the remains of 
the garland, no longer breathing of roses only, but 
of thee I" Which pretty conceit is borrowed (as the 
author of the Observer remarks) in a well known 
little song of Ben Jonson's: 

" But thou thereon didst only breathe, 

" And sent it back to me ; 
" Since when it looks and smells, I swear, 

" Not of itself, but thee!" 



50 



I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow, 
And ah ! I feel its magic now ! 
I feel that even his garland's touch 
Can make the bosom love too much ! 

And ah! I feel its magic now!~\ This idea, as 
Longepierre remarks, is in an epigram of the 
seventh book of the Anthologia. 

E|«Tg (4.61 TTtvovrt ovvi^ecao-ec XetpitiX&t 

THv(> oXoov tornru pi. 

While I unconscious quaff'd my wine, 
'Twas then thy fingers slyly stole 

Upon my brow that wreath of thine, 
Which since has madden'd all my soul 1 



51 



ODE II. 

Give me the harp of epic song, 
Which Homer's finger thrill'd along; 
But tear away the sanguine string, 
For war is not the theme I sing. 
Proclaim the laws of festal rite, 
I'm monarch of the board to-night; 
And all around shall brim as high, 
And quaff the tide as deep as I ! 
And when the cluster's mellowing dews 
Their warm, enchanting balm infuse, 
Our feet shall catch th' elastic bound, 
And reel us through the dance's round. 

Proclaim the laws of festal rite.'] The ancients 
prescribed certain laws of drinking at their festivals, 
for an account of which see the commentators. 
Anacreon here acts the symposiarch, or master 
of the festival. I have translated according to 
those, who consider kwixxx Bso-pav as an inversion 

Of &&<?(£%$ KV7TiXXuV. - 



52 

Oh Bacchus ! we shall sing to thee, 
In wild but sweet ebriety ! 
And flash around such sparks of thought, 
As Bacchus could alone have taught! 
Then give the harp of epic song, 
Which Homer's finger thrilPd along; 
But tear away the sanguine string, 
For war is not the theme I sing ! 



53 



ODE III. 



Listen to the Muse's lyre, 
Master of the pencil's fire ! 
Sketch'd in painting's bold display, 
Many a city first portray ; 
Many a city, revelling free, 
Warm with loose festivity. 
Picture then a rosy train, 
Bacchants straying o'er the plain; 
Piping, as they roam along, 
Roundelay or shepherd- song. 
Paint me next, if painting may 
Such a theme as this portray, 
All the happy heaven of love, 
These elect of Cupid prove. 

Monsieur La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen 
this poem by considerable interpolations of his own, 
which he thinks are indispensably necessary to the 
completion of the description. 



54 



ODE IV. 



Vu l c a n ! hear your glorious task ; 
I do not from your labours ask 
In gorgeous panoply to shine, 
For war was ne'er a sport of mine. 
No — let me have a silver bowl, 
Where I may cradle all my soul ; 
But let not o'er its simple frame 
Your mimic constellations flame ; 
Nor grave upon the swelling side 
Orion, scowling o'er the tide. 
I care not for the glitt'ring wane, 
Nor yet the weeping sister train. 
But oh! let vines luxuriant roll 
Their blushing tendrils round the bowl. 

This is the ode which Aulus Gellius tells us was 
performed by minstrels at an entertainment where 
he was present. 



55 

While many a rose-lip 'd bacchant maid 
Is culling clusters in their shade. 
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes, 
Wildly press the gushing grapes ; 
And flights of loves, in wanton ringlets, 
Flit around on golden winglets ; 
While Venus, to her mystic bower, 
Beckons the rosy vintage-Power. 

While many a rose-lift d bacchant maid, bfc.'] I have 
given this according to the Vatican manuscript, in 
which the ode concludes with the following lines, 
not inserted accurately in any of the editions: 

IIotY)(rov ce.p,mX%s pot 
Keci fioTpvct? icccr avruv 

Uoai 5g Xqvov own, 

AnVOviCTCtS 23*<JSTSVT*tf£, 

Tag recrvpxs yiXoivrct^ 
Koci xyw&s rag iparoc?, 
Kcti K.vfapy)V yiXatroiv, 
OfAH x.a'ho) Avo&im, 
Spar* k 'Atppo^mjv. 



56 



ODE V. 

Grave me a cup with brilliant grace, 
Deep as the rich and holy vase, 
Which on the shrine of Spring reposes, 
When shepherds hail 'that hour of roses. 
Grave it with themes of chaste design, 
Form'd for a heavenly bowl like mine. 
Display not there the barbarous rites, 
In which religious zeal delights ; 
Nor any tale of tragic fate, 
Which history trembles to relate ! 
No — cull thy fancies from above, 
Themes of heav'n and themes of love. 

Degen thinks that this ode is a more modern 
imitation of the preceding. There is a poem by 
Cxlius Calcagninus, in the manner of both, where 
he gives instructions about the making of a ring. 

Tornabis annulum mihi 

Et fabre, et apte, et commode, Sec. &c. 



57 



Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy, 
Distil the grape in drops of joy, 
And while he smiles at every tear, 
Let warm ey'd- Venus, dancing near, 
With spirits of the genial bed, 
The dewy herbage deftly tread. 
Let Love be there, without his arms, 
In timid nakedness of charms ; 

Let Love be there, ivithout his arms, ksfcJ] Thus 
Sannazaro in the eclogue of Gallicio nelF Arcadia : 

Vegnan li vaghi Amori 
Senza fiammelle, 6 strali, 
Scherzando insieme pargoletti e nudi. 

Fluttering on the busy wing, 
A train of naked Cupids came, 

Sporting round in harmless ring, 
Without a dart, without a flame. 

And thus in the Pervigilium Veneris : 

Ite nymphse, posuit arma, feriatus est Amor. 

Love is disarm'd — ye nymphs, in safety stray, 
Your bosoms now may boast a holiday ! 



58 



And all the Graces, link'd with Love, 
Blushing through the shadowy grove ; 
While rosy boys disporting round, 
In circlets trip the velvet ground; 
But ah! if there Apollo toys, 
I tremble for my rosy boys ! 

But ah ! if there Afiollo toys, 

I tremble for my rosy boys /] An allusion to the 
fable, that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth, 
while playing with him at quoits. " This (says M. 
La Fosse) is assuredly the sense of the text, and it 
cannot admit of any other." 

The Italian translators, to save themselves the 
trouble of a note, have taken the liberty of making 
Anacreon explain this fable. Thus Salvini, the most 
literal of any of them: 

Ma con lor non giuochi Apollo ; 

Che in fiero risco 

Col duro disco 

A Giacinto fiacco il collo. 






ODE VI. 

A 5 late I sought the spangled bowers, 
T i cull a wreath of matin flowers, 
AMiere many an early rose was weeping, 
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping. 

:: z-± ::.z ^er.'iir.e :zz?zr-.z ::" Ar. i : :-r : r. . I*. ~:.e H iht 
feinres ::::e:,::::: 

et facite insciis 

X:;:::e:_: _": :r^::.::_5. 

The commentators, however, have attributed it to 
Julian, a royal poet. 

Where many an early rose sot weefii". 

I found the urchin CufM deeping^ This idea is 

z~z~:\-\y .:.;:::::: ::. z:.t ::„:~~_r.i" ty.zzjz:.. zj Ar. irtis 

Xl". -Tri: i : 

FL:rer.:e$ L_r.-. ::ne vi^.5 ::;.ri HytlA p-t: :.::~: 5 

Z::t :•:-.:..; :":t: Ar.;.ir.:t~*. ir."e :*_:". Ar_; :re~. 

Z: :~_. _r.r.t:::^ £::.: e ::~: \~ '.. : ._.: 
L_:;:.v_: pr.rj. :. --. ::r.in zi:er.:::^= ills 

Ir.i:zii7_i :t"_i: s:>tr= "M-iti p_tr. 



60 



I caught the boy, a goblet's tide 
Was richly mantling by my side, 
I caught him by his downy wing, 
And whelm'd him in the racy spring. 

Mox ubi lacteolas et dignas matre papillas 
Vidit et ora ipsos nata movere Deos, 

Impositosque comse ambrosios ut sentit odores 
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs ; 

" I (dixit) mea, quaere novum tibi mater Amorem, 
" Imperio sedes hsec erit apta meo." 

As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove, 

A wreath of many mingled flowrets wove, 

Within a rose a sleeping Love she found, 

And in the twisted wreaths the baby bound. 

Awhile he .struggled, and impatient tried 

To break the rosy bonds the virgin tied ; 

But when he saw her bosom's milky swell, 

Her features, where the eye of Jove might dwell; 

And caught th' ambrosial odours of her hair, 

Rich as the breathings of Arabian air ; 

" Oh ! mother Venus" (said the raptur'd child, 

By charms, of more than mortal bloom, beguil'd) 

" Go, seek another boy, thou'st lost thine own, 

" Hyella's bosom shall be Cupid's throne !" 



61 



Oh ! then I drank the poison'd bowl, 
And Love now nestles in my soul ! 
Yes. yes. my soul is Cupid's nest, 
I feel him fluttering in my breast. 

This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodovico 
Dolce in a poem, beginning 

Mentre raccoglie hor imo, hor altro fiore 
Vicina aimriodi chiare et lucid' onde, 
Lidia, &c. Sec. 



62 



ODE VII. 

The women tell me every day 

That all my bloom has past away. 

" Behold," the pretty wantons cry, 

" Behold this mirror with a sigh; 

" The locks upon thy brow are few, 

' ' And, like the rest, they're withering too ! " 

Whether decline has thinn'd my hair, 

I'm sure I neither know nor care ; 

But this I know, and this I feel, 

As onward to the tomb I steal, 

Alberti has imitated this ode in a poem, beginning 

Nisa mi dice e Clori 
Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio. 
Whether decline has thinn'd my hair, 
I'm sure I neither know nor care ,•] Henry Stephen 
very justly remarks the elegant negligence of 
expression in the original here: 
TLya £e rocg x,op.as piv 

Ovz oioet. 



63 



That still as death approaches nearer, 
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer; 
And had I but an hour to live, 
That little hour to bliss I'd give ! 

And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus, what 
he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of 
manner : 
Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit. 

Longepierre was a good critic; but perhaps the 
line which he has selected is a specimen of a care- 
lessness not very elegant ; at the same time I confess, 
that none of the Latin poets has ever appeared to me 
so capable of imitating the graces of Anacreon as 
Catullus, if he had not allowed a depraved imagina- 
tion to hurry him so often into vulgar licentiousness. 

That still as death approaches nearer. 

The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;'] Pontanus has 
a very delicate thought upon the subject of old age : 

Quid rides, Matrona? senem quid temnis amantem? 
Quisquis amat, nulla est conditione, senex. 
Why do you scorn my want of youth, 
And with a smile my brow behold ? 
Lady dear I believe this truth, 
That he who loves cannot be old. 



64s 



ODE VIII. 

I care not for the idle state 
Of Persia's king, the rich, the great! 
I envy not the monarch's throne, 
Nor wish the treasur'd gold my own. 
But oh ! be mine the rosy braid, 
The fervour of my brows to shade ; 

" The German poet Lessing has imitated this 
ode. Vol. i. p. 24." Degen. Gail de Editionibus. 

Baxter conjectures that this was written upon 
the occasion of our poet's returning the money to 
Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobxus. 

I care not for the idle state 

Of Persia's king, Ifc] " There is a fragment of 
Archilochus in Plutarch, i De tranquillitate animi,' 
which our poet has very closely imitated here ; it 
begins, 

Ov [tot rx Tvyia m ■&oXv%pv<r% f&ztei." Barnes. 
In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find 
the same thought : 

Ti croi B-iXsig ylHC&oii', 
®itei$ Fvyieij rx x.cti rot-, 



65 



Be mine the odours, richly sighing, 
Amidst my hoary tresses flying. 

Be mine the odours, richly sighing, 

Amidst my hoary tresses flying.] In the original, 
fAvpais-i xxrx£ps%uv iwYivviv. On account of this idea of 
perfuming the beard, Cornelius de Pauw pronounces 
the whole ode to be the spurious production of some 
lascivious monk, who was nursing his beard with 
unguents. But he should have known, that this was 
an ancient eastern custom, which, if we may believe 
Savary, still exists : " Vous voyez, Monsieur (says 
this traveller), que l'usage antique de se parfumer 
la tete et la barbe,* celebre par le prophete Rci, 
subsiste encore de nos jours." Lettre 12. Savary 
likewise cites this very ode of Anacreon. Angerianus 
has not thought the idea inconsistent : he has intro- 
duced it in the following lines : 

Hsec mihi cura, rosis et cingere tempora myrto, 

Et curas multo delapidare mero. 
Hxc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo 

Assyrio et dulces continuare jocos. 

This be my care, to twine the rosy wreath, 
And drench my sorrows in the ample bowl ; 

To let my beard th' Assyrian unguent breathe, 
And give a loose to levity of soul ! 

* " Sicut unguentum in capite quod descendit in barbam 
Aaron. Pseaume 132." 



66 



To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine, 
As if to-morrow ne'er should shine; 
But if to-morrow comes, why then — 
I'll haste to quaff my wine again. 
And thus while all our days are bright, 
Nor Time has dimm'd their bloomy light, 
Let us the festal hours beguile 
With mantling cup and cordial smile ; 
And shed from every bowl of wine 
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine! 
For Death may come, with brow unpleasant, 
May come, when least we wish him present, 
And beckon to the sable shore, 
And grimly bid us — drink no more ! 



67 



ODE IX. 

I pray thee, by the gods above, 
Give me the mighty bowl I love, 
And let me sing, in wild delight, 
" I will — I will be mad to-night!" 
Alcmaeon once, as legends tell, 
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell; 
Orestes too, with naked tread, 
Frantic pac'd the mountain-head; 
And why ? a murder'd mother's shade 
Before their conscious fancy play'd. 

The Poet here is in a frenzy of enjoyment, and 
it is, indeed, " amabilis insania." 

Furor di poesia, 
Di lascivia, e di vino, 
Triplicate furore, 
Bacco, Apollo, et Amore. 

Ritratti del Cavalier Marino. 
This is, as Scaliger expresses it, 

Insanire dulce 

Et sapidum furere furorem. 



68 



But I can ne'er a murderer be, 
The grape alone shall bleed by me ; 
Yet can I rave, in wild delight, 
" I will — I will be mad to-night." 
The son of Jove, in days of yore, 
Imbru'd his hands in youthful gore, 
And brandish'd, with a maniac joy, 
The quiver of th' expiring boy: 
And Ajax, with tremendous shield, 
Infuriate scour'd the guiltless field. 
But I, whose hands no quiver hold, 
No weapon but this flask of gold; 
The trophy of whose frantic hours 
Is but a scatter'd wreath of flowers ; 
Yet, yet can sing with wild delight, 
" I will — I will be mad to-night!" 



69 



ODE X, 



Tell me how to punish thee, 
For the mischief done to me ? 
Silly swallow ! prating thing, 
Shall I clip that wheeling wing ? 

This ode is addressed to a swallow. I find from 
Degen and from Gail's index, that the German poet 
Weisse has imitated it, Scherz.Lieder.lib.ii.carm.5 ; 
that Ramler also has imitated it, Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. 
iv. p. 335 ; and some others. See Gail de Editionibus. 

We are referred by Degen to that stupid book, the 
Epistles of Alciphron, tenth epistle, third book ; where 
Iophon complains to Eraston of being wakened by the 
crowing of a cock from his vision of riches. 

Silly swallow ! jirating thing, IsfcJ] The loquacity of 
the swallow wasproverbialized; thus Nicostratus: 

E; to a-vn^coq y.va ztoXXoc kcci ra^iag XccXnv 
Eteyovr .xv vftav (ratyyovififou -zsoXv* 

If in prating from morning till night, 
A sign of our wisdom there be ; 

The swallows are wiser by right, 

For they prattle much faster than we. 



70 

Or, as Tereus did of old 
(So the fabled tale is told) 
Shall I tear that tongue away, 
Tongue that utter'd such a lay ? 
How unthinking hast thou been! 
Long before the dawn was seen, 
When I slumber'd in a dream, 
(Love was the delicious theme!) 
Just when I was nearly blest, 
Ah ! thy matin broke my rest ! 

Or, as Tereus did of old, b*c] Modern poetry has 
confirmed the name of Philomel upon the nightin- 
gale ; but many very respectable ancients assigned 
this metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel 
the swallow, as Anacreon does here. 



71 



ODE XL 

" Tell me, gentle youth, I pray thee, 

" What in purchase shall I pay thee 

" For this little waxen toy, 

" Image of the Paphian boy?" 

Thus I said the other day, 

To a youth who pass'd my way : 

" Sir," (he answer 'd, and the while 

Answer'd all in Doric style,) 

" Take it, for a trifle take it; 

" Think not yet that I could make it; 

" Pray, believe it was not I; 

" No — it cost me many a sigh, 

It is difficult to preserve with any grace the 
narrative simplicity of this ode, and the humour 
of the turn with which it concludes. I feel that 
the translation must appear very vapid, if not 
ludicrous, to an English reader. 



72 



" And I can no longer keep 

" Little gods, who murder sleep!" 

" Here, then, here," (I said with joy,) 

" Here is silver for the boy: 

" He shall be my bosom guest, 

" Idol of my pious breast!" 

Little Love ! thou now art mine, 

Warm me with that torch of thine ; 

Make me feel as I have felt, 

Or thy waxen frame shall melt. 

I must burn in warm desire, 

Or thou, my boy, in yonder fire! 

And I can no longer keep, 

Little gods, who murder sleep .'] I have not literally- 
rendered the epithet ■^ecvro^x.ioi $ if it has any- 
meaning here, it is one, perhaps, better omitted. 

I must burn in warm desire, 

Or thou, my boy, in yonder Jtrel~\ Monsieur Longe- 
pierre conjectures from this, that, whatever Anacreon 
might say, he sometimes felt the inconveniences of 
old age, and here solicits from the power of Love a 
warmth which he could no longer expect from nature. 



73 



ODE XII. 

They tell how Atys, wild with love, 
Roams the mount and haunted grove ; 
Cybele' s name he howls around, 
The gloomy blast returns the sound ! 
Oft too by Claros' hallow'd spring, 
The votaries of the laurell'd king 

They tell how Atys, wild with love, 

Roams the mount and haunted grove ;~\ There are 
many contradictory stories of the loves of Cybele 
and Atys. It is certain that he was mutilated, but 
whether by his own fury, or her jealousy, is a point 
which authors are not agreed upon. 

Cybele's name he howls around, ifc.] I have adopted 
the accentuation which Elias Andreas gives to 
Cybele: 

In montibus Cybelen: 
Magno sonans boatu. 

Oft too by Claros* hallow'd spring, \Sfcl\ This foun- 
tain was in a grove, consecrated to Apollo, and 
situated between Colophon and Lebedos, in Ionia. 



74 



Quaff the inspiring, magic stream, 

And rave, in wild prophetic dream. 

But frenzied dreams are not for me, 

Great Bacchus is my deity ! 

Full of mirth, and full of him, 

While waves of perfume round me swim; 

While flavour'd bowls are full supplied, 

And you sit blushing by my side, 

I will be mad and raving too — 

Mad, my girl ! with love for you ! 

The god had an oracle there. Scaliger has thus 
alluded to it in his Anacreontica : 

Semel ut concitus cestro, 
Veluti qui Clarias aquas, 
Ebibere loquaces, 
Quo plus canunt, plura volunt. 

While waves of perfume round me sivimi] Spaletti 
has mistaken the import of KopwfetSf as applied to 
the poet's mistress : " Mea fatigatus arnica." He 
interprets it, in a sense which must want either 
delicacy or gallantry. 



75 



ODE XIII. 

I will; I will; the conflict's past, 
And I'll consent to love at last. 
Cupid has long, with smiling art, 
Invited me to yield my heart; 
And I have thought that peace of mind 
Should not be for a smile resign'd; 
And I've repell'd the tender lure, 
And hop'd my heart should sleep secure. 
But, slighted in his boasted charms, 
The angry infant flew to arms ; 
He slung his quiver's golden frame, 
He took his bow, his shafts of flame, 
And proudly summon'd me to yield, 
Or meet him on the martial field. 
And what did I unthinking do ? 
I took to arms, undaunted too ; 

And what did I unthinking do? 
I took to arms^ undaunted too;~\ Longepierre has 
quoted an epigram, from the Anthologia, in which 



76 



Assum'd the corslet, shield, and spear, 
And, like Pelides, smil'd at fear. 

the poet assumes Reason as the armour against 
Love. 

Q,7r\i<r/&xi vrpos iparx znpi rzpvoicrt Xoyi<rp,ov y 

Ovds pi vixvi<ru, povot; iav <&qo$ hot. 
Qvocrog & ccdxvxra <rvvitev<ropoii. yv h fioy&ov 

BctK%ov t%viy ri povog zrgos $v iya dvvecpx;; 

With Reason I cover my breast as a shield, 
And fearlessly meet little Love in the field ; 
Thus fighting his godship, I'll ne'er be dismay'd, 
But if Bacchus should ever advance to his aid, 
Alas ! then, unable to combat the two, 
Unfortunate warrior 1 what should I do ? 

This idea of the irresistibility of Cupid and 
Bacchus united, is delicately expressed in an Italian 
poem, which is so very Anacreontic, that I may 
be pardoned for introducing it. Indeed, it is an 
imitation of our poet's sixth ode. 

Lavossi Amore in quel vicino flume 
Ove giuro (Pastor) che bevend 'io 
Bevei le fiamme, anzi l'istesso Dio, 
C'hor con l'humide piume 
Lascivetto mi scherza al cor intorno. 
Ma che sarei s'io lo bevessi un giorno 
Bacco,.nel tuo liquore? 
Sarei, piu che non sono ebro d' Amore. 



77 



Then (hear it, all you powers above ! ) 
I fought with Love ! I fought with Love 1 
And now his arrows all were shed — 
And I had just in terrors fled — 
When, heaving an indignant sigh, 
To see me thus unwounded fly, 

The urchin of the bow and quiver 
Was bathing in a neighbouring river, 
Where, as I drank on yester-eve, 
(Shepherd-youth 1 the tale believe,) 
'Twas not a cooling, crystal draught, 
'Twas liquid flame I madly quaff 'd; 
For Love was in the rippling tide, 
I felt him to my bosom glide. 
And now the wily, wanton minion 
Plays o'er my heart with restless pinion. 
This was a day of fatal star, 
But were it not more fatal far, 
If, Bacchus, in thy cup of fire, 
I found this flutt'ring, young desire? 
Then, then indeed my soul should prove, 
Much more than ever, drunk with love! 



78 



And, having now no other dart, 
He glanc'd himself into my heart! 
My heart — alas the luckless day ! 
Receiv'd the God, and died away. 
Farewel, farewel, my faithless shield! 
Thy lord at length is forc'd to yield. 
Vain, vain, is every outward care, 
My foe's within, and triumphs there. 

And, having left no other dart, 
He glanc'd himself into my heart!"] Dryden has 
parodied this thought in the following extravagant 
lines : 

I'm all o'er Love ; 

Nay, I am Love, Love shot, and shot so fast, 
He shot himself into my breast at last. 



79 



ODE XIV. 

Couxt me, on the summer trees, 
Even- leaf that courts the breeze ; 
Count me, on the foamy deep, 
Every wave that sinks to sleep ; 

The poet, in this catalogue of his mistresses, 
means nothing more, than, by a lively hyperbole, to 
tell us, that his heart, unfettered by any one object, 
was warm with devotion towards the sex in general. 
Cowley is indebted to this ode for the hint of his 
ballad, called " The Chronicle;" and the learned 
Monsieur Menage has imitated it in a Greek 
Anacreontic, which has so much ease and spirit, 
that the reader may not be displeased at seeing 
it here: 

Tlst: B.a»as, 

Ai.ux ,.*: 7: — i.^r. 

Jlx^ZKT.lsi --. y«ii«»f, 
k A/.c-: ~i Kvuxrtt^ 

y.;.TU:.t } 
KJM 7*r = ;•;>; i:^rx; 

_ . I... ..- . .; 



80 



Then, when you have number'd these 
Billowy tides and leafy trees, 
Count me all the flames I prove, 
All the gentle nymphs I love. 

S^wcgjjv, Mso-jjy, Mtyifw, 
AzvKiiv ts xcci MzXectvxv, 
OgueAou^ Net7r<ziotg, 

l O cos $1X0$ <piXvj<re» 
Tlocvrm xo^os ptv i$iu 
Avrqv vicov H^arav 
Atc7roivet,v Atp^ooirviV) 
XgvctyVj xxXviv, yXvKiiocv, 
EgeurptoV) -zrohivqv, 
An ftovqv tpiXv)<?eci 
Eyayt fin ^ovuipw* 

' Tell the foliage of the woods, 
Tell the billows of the floods, 
Number midnight's starry store, 
And the sands that crowd the shore ; 
Then, my Bion, thou mayst count 
Of my loves the vast amount ! 
I've been loving, all my days, 
Many nymphs, in many ways, 



81 

First, of pure Athenian maids 
Sporting in their olive shades, 
You may reckon just a score, 
Nay, I'll grant you fifteen more. 

Virgin, widow, maid, and wife— 
I've been doting all my life. 
Naiads, Nereids, nymphs of fountains, 
Goddesses of groves and mountains, 
Fair and sable, great and small, 
Yes — I swear I've lovM them all 1 
Every passion soon was over, 
I was but the moment's lover ; 
Oh I I'm such a roving elf. 
That the Queen of Love herself. 
Though she practis'd all her wiles, 
Rosy blushes, golden smiles, 
All her beauty's proud endeavour 
Could not chain my heart forever 1 

Count me, en the summer trees, 

Every leaf, eft-.] This figure is called, by the 
rhetoricians, xovixrtf, and is very frequently made 
use of in poetry. The amatory writers have 
exhausted a world of imageiy by it, to express the 
infinity of kisses, which they require from the lips 
of their mistresses: in this Catullus led the way. 



82 

In the sweet Corinthian grove, 
Where the glowing wantons rove, 

— Quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox, 

Furtivos hominum vident amores ; 

Tarn te basia multa basiare 

Vesano satis, et super Catullo est: 

Quae nee pernumerare curiosi 

Possint, nee mala fascinare lingua. Carm. 7. 

As many stellar eyes of light, 

As through the silent waste of night, 

Gazing upon this world of shade, 

Witness some secret youth and maid, 

Who fair as thou, and fond as I, 

In stolen joys enamour'd lie ! 

So many kisses, ere I slumber, 

Upon those dew -bright lips I'll number, 

So many vermil, honied kisses, 

Envy can never count our blisses. 

No tongue shall tell the sum but mine ; 

No lips shall fascinate, but thine ! 

In the sweet Corinthian grove, 

Where the glowing wantons rove, ifc."] Corinth 
was very famous for the beauty and the number 
of its courtezans. Venus was the deity principally 
worshipped by the people, and prostitution in her 



83 



Chains of beauties may be found, 
Chains, by which my heart is bound ; 
There indeed are girls divine, 
Dangerous to a soul like mine ! 
Many bloom in Lesbos' isle ; 
Many in Ionia smile ; 
Rhodes a pretty swarm can boast ; 
Caria too contains a host. 



temple was a meritorious act of religion. Conform- 
able to this was their constant and solemn prayer, 
that the gods would increase the number of their 
courtezans. We may perceive from the application 
of the verb xap<y0<a£c<», in Aristophanes, that the 
wantonness of the Corinthians became proverbial. 

There indeed are girls divine. 

Dangerous to a soid like mine /] " With Justice 
has the poet attributed beauty to the women of 
Greece." Degen. 

Monsieur de Pauw, the author of Dissertations 
upon the Greeks, is of a different opinion; he 
thinks, that by a capricious partiality of nature, 
the other sex had all the beauty, and accounts 
upon this supposition for a very singular deprava- 
tion of instinct among them. 



84 



Sum these all — of brown and fair 
You may count two thousand there ! 
What, you gaze ! I pray you, peace ! 
More I'll find before I cease. 
Have I told you all my flames, 
'Mong the amorous Syrian dames ? 
Have I number'd every one, 
Glowing under Egypt's sun ? 
Or the nymphs, who blushing sweet 
Deck the shrine of Love in Crete ; 
Where the God, with festal play, 
Holds eternal holiday? 
Still in clusters, still remain 
Gade's warm, desiring train; 

'Gade's warm, desiring train;'] The Gaditanian 
girls were like the Baladieres of India, whose 
dances are thus described by a French author: 
" Les danses sont presque toutes des pantomimes 
d'amour; le plan, le dessein, les attitudes, les 
mesures, les sons et les cadences de ces ballets, 
tout respire cette passion et en exprime les voluptes 
et les fureurs." Histoire du Commerce des Europ. 
dans les deux Indes. Raynal. 



85 

Still there lies a myriad more 
On the sable India's shore ; 
These, and many far remov'd, 
All are loving — all are lov'd! 

The music of the Gaditanian females had all the 
voluptuous character of their dancing, as appears 
from Martial: 

Cantica qui Nili, qui Gaditana susurrat. 

Lib. iii. Epig. 63. 

Lodovico Ariosto had this ode of our bard in 
his mind, when he wrote his poem " De diversis 
amoribus." See the Anthologia Italorum. 



86 



ODE XV. 



Tell me, why, my sweetest dove, 
Thus your humid pinions move, 
Shedding through the air in showers 
Essence of the balmiest flowers ? 



The dove of Anacreon, bearing a letter from the 
poet to his mistress, is met by a stranger, with whom 
this dialogue is imagined. 

The ancients made use of letter-carrying pigeons, 
when they went any distance from home, as the 
most certain means of conveying intelligence back. 
That tender domestic attachment, which attracts 
this delicate little bird through every danger and 
difficulty, till it settles in its native nest, affords to 
the elegant author of " The Pleasures of Memory" 
a fine and interesting exemplification of his subject. 

Led by what chart, transports the timid dove 
The wreaths of conquest, or the vows of love ? 
See the poem. Daniel Heinsius has a similar senti- 
ment, speaking of Dousa, who adopted this method 
at the siege of Leyden : 

Quo patriae non tendit amor? Mandata referre 
Postquam hominem nequiit mittere, misit avem. 



87 



Tell me whither, whence you rove, 
Tell me all, my sweetest dove. 
Curious stranger! I belong 
To the bard of Teian song; 
With his mandate now I fly 
To the nymph of azure eye ; 
Ah ! that eye has madden 'd many, 
But the poet more than any ! 
Venus, for a hymn of love, 
Warbled in her votive grove, 

Fuller tells us, that at the siege of Jerusalem, the 
Christians intercepted a letter, tied to the legs of a 
dove, in which the Persian emperor promised assist- 
ance to the besieged. See Fuller's Holy War, cap. 
24. book i. 

Ah! that eye has madden 'd many, £?*<:.] For rvpxwov, 
in the original, Zeune and Schneider conjecture that 
we should read rvpxvta, in allusion to the strong 
influence which this object of his love held over 
the mind of Polycrates. See Degen. 

Venus, for a hymn of love, 

Warbled in her votive grove, &c.'\ " This passage 
is invaluable, and I do not think that any thing so 
beautiful or so delicate has ever been said. What 



88 



('Twas in sooth a gentle lay,) 

Gave me to the bard away. 

See me now his faithful minion, 

Thus with softly- gliding pinion, 

To his lovely girl I bear 

Songs of passion through the air. 

Oft he blandly whispers me, 

" Soon, my bird, I'll set you free." 

But in vain he'll bid me fly, 

I shall serve him till I die. 

Never could my plumes sustain 

Ruffling winds and chilling rain, 

O'er the plains, or in the dell, 

On the mountain's savage swell; 

an idea does it give of the poetry of the man, from 
whom Venus herself, the mother of the Graces and 
the Pleasures, purchases a little hymn with one of 
her favourite doves I" Longepierre. 

De Pauw objects to the authenticity of this ode, 
because it makes Anacreon his own panegyrist ; but 
poets have a license for praising themselves, which, 
with some indeed, may be considered as comprised 
under their general privilege of fiction. 



89 

Seeking in the desert wood 
Gloomy shelter, rustic food. 
Now I lead a life of ease, 
Far from such retreats as these 
From Anacreon's hand I eat 
Food delicious, viands sweet; 
Flutter o'er his goblet's brim, 
Sip the foamy wine with him. 
Then I dance and wanton round 
To the lyre's beguiling sound ; 
Or with gently-fanning wings 
Shade the minstrel while he sings : 
On his harp then sink in slumbers, 
Dreaming still of dulcet numbers ! 
This is all — away — away — 
You have made me waste the day. 
How I've chatter'd ! prating crow 
Never yet did chatter so. 



90 



ODE XVI. 

Thou, whose soft and rosy hues 
Mimic form, and soul infuse; 
Best of painters ! come portray 
The lovely maid that's far away. 

This ode and the next may be called companion- 
pictures ; they are highly finished, and give us an 
excellent idea of the taste of the ancients in beauty. 
Franciscus Junius quotes them in his third book 
" De Pictura Veterum." 

This ode has been imitated by Ronsard, Giuliano 
Goselini, See. Sec. Scaliger alludes to it thus in his 
Anacreontica : 

Olim lepore blando, 
Litis versibus 
Candidus Anacreon 
Quam pingeret Amicus 
Descripsit Venerem suam. 

The Teian bard, of former days, 
Attun'd his sweet descriptive lays, 
And taught the painter's hand to trace 
His fair beloved's every grace! 



91 



Far away, my soul ! thou art, 
But I've thy beauties all by heart. 
Paint her jetty ringlets straying, 
Silky twine in tendrils playing; 

In the dialogue of Caspar Barteus, entitled " An 
formosa sit ducenda," the reader will find many- 
curious ideas and descriptions of beauty. 

Thou, whose soft and rosy hues 

Mimic form, and soul infuse ;] I have followed the 
reading of the Vatican MS. gd2su?. Painting is called 
" the rosy art," either in reference to colouring, or 
as an indefinite epithet of excellence, from the 
association of beauty with that flower. Salvini has 
adopted this reading in his literal translation: 

Delia rosea arte signore. 

The lovely maid that's far away.] If the portrait 
of this beauty be not merely ideal, the omission of 
her name is much to be regretted. Meleager, in 
an epigram on Anacreon, mentions " the golden 
Eurypyle" as his mistress. 

Paint her jetty ringlets straying, 

Silky twine in tendrils playing ;] The ancients 
have been very enthusiastic in their praises of hair. 
Apuleius, in the second book of his Milesiacs, says, 



92 

And, if painting hath the skill 
To make the spicy balm distil, 
Let every little lock exhale 
A sigh of perfume on the gale. 

that Venus herself, if she were bald, though sur- 
rounded by the Graces and the Loves, could not be 
pleasing even to her husband Vulcan. 

Stesichorus gave the epithet xu*Xi7rX<»tu[*os to the 
Graces, and Simonides bestowed the same upon the 
Muses. See Hadrian Junius's Dissertation upon Hair. 

To this passage of our poet, Selden alluded in a 
note on the Polyolbion of Drayton, song the second, 
where observing, that the epithet " black-haired' 5 
was given by some of the ancients to the goddess 
Isis, he says, " Nor will I swear, but that Anacreon 
(a man very judicious in the provoking motives 
of wanton love), intending to bestow on his sweet 
mistress that one of the titles of women's special 
ornament, well^haired (xaAA^Aox^o?), thought of 
this when he gave his painter direction to make 
her black-haired." 

And) if painting hath the skill 

To make the spicy balm distil, Itfc] Thus Philostra- 
tus, speaking of a picture : t-reava kui rov sv^os-av tm 
Qohav Kcti tpn/Lii yiypottpQc&t xvrec, ftirct rn? 6<r^g. " I 
admire the dewiness of these roses, and could say 
that their very smell was painted." 



93 

Where her tresses' curly flow 
Darkles o'er the brow of snow, 
Let her forehead beam to light, 
Burnish'd as the ivory bright. 
Let her eyebrows sweetly rise 
In jetty arches o'er her eyes, 
Gently in a crescent gliding, 
Just commingling, just dividing. 
But hast thou any sparkles warm, 
The lightning of her eyes to form ? 
Let them effuse the azure ray, 
With which Minerva's glances play, 
And give them ail that liquid fire, 
That Venus' languid eyes respire. 



And give them all that liquid Jire, 
That Venus 9 languid eyes resp.ire.'] Marchetti 
explains thus the vypov of the original: 

Dipingili umidetti 
Tremuii e lascivetti, 
Quai gli ha Ciprigna Talma Dea d'Amore. 

Tasso has painted in the same manner the eyes 
of Armida, as La Fosse remarks : 



94 



O'er her nose and cheek be shed 
Flushing white and mellow'd red; 
Gradual tints, as when there glows 
In snowy milk the bashful rose. 

Qual raggio in onda le scintilla un riso 
Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo. 

Within her humid, melting eyes 
A brilliant ray of laughter lies, 
Soft as the broken, solar beam, 
That trembles in the azure stream. 

The mingled expression of dignity and tenderness, 
which Anacreon requires the painter to infuse into 
the eyes of his mistress, is more amply described 
in the subsequent ode. Both descriptions are so 
exquisitely touched, that the artist must have been 
great indeed, if he did not yield in painting to the 
poet. 

Gradual tints, as when there glows 

In snowy milk the bashful rose.] Thus Propertius, 
eleg. 3. lib. ii. 

Utque rosze puro lacte natant folia. 

And Davenant, in a little poem called i The Mistress,' 

Catch as it falls the Scythian snow, 
Bring blushing roses steep'd in milk. 



95 

Then her lip, so rich in blisses ! 
Sweet petitioner for kisses! 
Pouting nest of bland persuasion, 
Ripely suing Love's invasion. 

Thus too Taygetus: 

Qux lac atque rosas vincis candore rubenti. 

These last words may perhaps defend the " flushing 
white" of the translation. 

Then her lip, so rich in blisses! 

Sweet petitioner for kisses .'] The " lip, provoking 
kisses," in the original, is a strong and beautiful 
expression. Achilles Tatius speaks of %uM ftahdetKx 
-zrpos roc qtiXypotTet, " Lips soft and delicate for kissing." 
A grave old commentator, Dionysius Lambinus, in 
his notes upon Lucretius, tells us with all the autho- 
rity of experience, that girls who have large lips 
kiss infinitely sweeter than others I " Suavius viros 
osculantur puells labiosse, quam quse sunt brevibus 
labris." And iEneas Sylvius, in his tedious uninter- 
esting story of the adulterous loves of Euryalus and 
Lucretia, where he particularizes the beauties of 
the heroine (in a very false and laboured style of 
latinity), describes her lips as exquisitely adapted, 
for biting. " Os parvum decensque, labia corallini 
coloris ad morsum aptissima." Epist. 114. lib. i. 



96 



Then beneath the velvet chin, 
Whose dimple shades a love within, 
Mould her neck, with grace descending, 
In a heaven of beauty ending; 
While airy charms, above, below, 
Sport and flutter on its snow. 
Now let a floating, lucid veil, 
Shadow her limbs, but not conceal; 



Then beneath the velvet chin, 

TVliose dimple shades a love within, ifc.'] Madame 
Dacier has quoted here two pretty lines of Varro : 

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo 
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem. 

In her chin is a delicate dimple, 
By the finger of Cupid imprest ; 

There Softness, bewitchingly simple, 
Has chosen her innocent nest. 

JVbw let a floating, lucid veil, 

Shadow her limbs, but not conceal; \$c.~\ This 
delicate art of description, which leaves imagination 
to complete the picture, has been seldom adopted in 



97 



A charm may peep, a hue may beam, 
And leave the rest to Fancy's dream. 
Enough — 'tis she! 'tis all I seek; 
It glows, it lives, it soon will speak ! 

the imitations of this beautiful poem. Ronsard is 
exceptionally minute ; and Politianus, in his charm- 
ing portrait of a girl, full of rich and exquisite diction, 
has lifted the veil rather too much. The " questo che 
tu m* intendi" should be always left to fancy. 



98 



ODE XVII. 

And now, with all thy pencil's truth, 
Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth! 
Let his hair, in lapses bright, 
Fall like streaming rays of light; 
And there the raven's die confuse 
With the yellow sunbeam's hues. 

The reader, who wishes to acquire an accurate 
idea of the judgment of the ancients in beauty, 
will be indulged by consulting Junius de Pictura 
Veterum, ninth chapter, third book, where he will 
find a very curious selection of descriptions and 
epithets of personal perfections ; he compares this 
ode with a description of Thecdoric, king of the 
Goths, in the second epistle, first book of Sidonius 
Apollinaris. 

Let his hair, in lapses bright. 

Fall like streaming rays of light; Wc] He here 
describes the sunny hair, " the flava coma," which 
the ancients so much admired. The Romans gave 
this colour artificially to their hair. See Stanisl. 
Kobienzyck de Luxu Romanorum. 



99 



Let not the braid, with artful twine, 
The flowing of his locks confine ; 
But loosen every golden ring, 
To float upon the breeze's wing. 
Beneath the front of polish'd glow, 
Front, as fair as mountain-snow, 
And guileless as the dews of dawn, 
Let the majestic brows be drawn, 
Of ebon dies, enrich'd by gold, 
Such as the scaly snakes unfold. 

Let not the braid, with artful twine, &c."] If the 
original here, which is particularly beautiful, can 
admit of any additional value, that value is conferred 
by Gray's admiration of it. See his letters to West. 

Some annotators have quoted on this passage 
the description of Photis's hair in Apuleius; but 
nothing can be more distant from the simplicity of 
our poet's manner, than that affectation of richness 
which distinguishes the style of Apuleius. 

Front \ as fair as mountain-snow, 

And guileless as the dews of dawn, Isfc] Torrentius, 
upon the words " insignem tenui fronte," in the 
thirty -third ode of the first book of Horace, is of 
opinion that " tenui" bears the meaning of ecnxXov 
here ; but he is certainly incorrect. 



100 

Mingle, in his jetty glances, 

Power that awes, and love that trances; 

Mingle, in his jetty glances, 

Power that awes, and love that trances; fcrt\] Tasso 
gives a similar character to the eyes of Clorinda : 

Lampeggiar gli occhi, e folgorar gli sguardi 
Dolci ne l'ira. 

Her eyes were glowing with a heavenly heat, 
Emaning fire, and e'en in anger sweet ! 

The poetess Veronica Cambara is more diffuse 
upon this variety of expression: 

Occhi lucenti e belli 

Come esser puo ch'in un medesmo istante 

Nascan de voi si nove forme e tante ? 

Lieti, mesti, superbi. humiF altieri 

Vi mostrate in un punto, ondi di speme, 

Et di timor ne empiete, &c. &c. 

Oh! tell me, brightly-beaming eye, 
Whence in your little orbit lie 
So many different traits of fire, 
Expressing each a new desire. 
Now with angry scorn you darkle, 
Now with tender languish sparkle, 
And we who view the various mirror, 
Feel at once both hope and terror* 



101 

Steal from Venus bland desire, 
Steal from Mars the look of fire, 
Blend them in such expression here, 
That we by turns may hope and fear! 
Now from the sunny apple seek 
The velvet down that spreads his cheek ; 
And there let Beauty's rosy ray 
In flying blushes richly play ; 
Blushes, of that celestial flame 
Which lights the cheek of virgin shame. 
Then for his lips, that ripely gem — 
But let thy mind imagine them ! 
Paint, where the ruby cell uncloses, 
Persuasion sleeping upon roses; 

Monsieur Chevreau, citing the lines of our poet, 
in his critique on the poems of Malherbe, produces 
a Latin version of them from a manuscript which 
he had seen, entitled " Joan. Falconis, Anacreontici 
Lusus." 

Persuasion sleeping upon roses ;] It was worthy 
of the delicate imagination of the Greeks to deify 
Persuasion, and give her the lips for her throne. 
We are here reminded of a very interesting frag- 
ment of Anacreon, preserved by the scholiast upon 



102 

And give his lip that speaking air, 
As if a word .was hovering there ! 
His neck of ivory splendour trace, 
Moulded with soft but manly grace ; 
Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy, 
Where Paphia's arms have hung in joy. 
Give him the winged Hermes' hand, 
With which he waves his snaky wand; 

Pindar, and supposed to belong to a poem reflecting 
with some severity on Simonides, who was the first, 
we are told, that ever made a hireling of his muse. 

Nor yet had fair Persuasion shone 
In silver splendours, not her own. 

And give his lip. that speaking air, 
As if a word was hovering there /] In the original 
?ix\m crieuTrn. The mistress of Petrarch " parla con 
silentio," which is perhaps the best method of female 
eloquence. 

Give him the winged Hermes' hand, l^c.~\ In 
Shakspeare's Cymbeline there is a similar method 
of description: 

this is his hand, 

His foot mercurial, his martial thigh, 
The brawns of Hercules. 



103 

Let Bacchus then the breast supply, 
And Leda's son the sinewy thigh. 
But oh ! suffuse his limbs of fire 
With all that glow of young desire, 
Which kindles, when the wishful sigh 
Steals from the heart, unconscious why. 
Thy pencil, though divinely bright, 
Is envious of the eye's delight, 
Or its enamour'd touch would show 
His shoulder, fair as sunless snow, 

We find it likewise in Hamlet. Longepierre thinks 
that the hands of Mercury are selected by Anacreon, 
on account of the graceful gestures which were 
supposed to characterize the god of eloquence ; but 
Mercury was also the patron of thieves, and may 
perhaps be praised as a light-fingered deity. 

But oh I suffuse his limbs of Jire 

With all that glow of young desire, Vc."] I have 
taken the liberty here of somewhat veiling the 
original. Madame Dacier, in her translation, has 
hung out lights (as Sterne would call it) at this 
passage. It is very much to be regretted, that this 
substitution of asterisks has been so much adopted 
in the popular interpretations of the Classics; it 
serves but to bring whatever is exceptionable into 
notice, " claramque facem pr<eferre pudendis." 



104 

Which now in veiling shadow lies, 
Remov'd from all but Fancy's eyes. 
Now, for his feet — but hold — forbear — 
I see a godlike portrait there ; 
So like Bathyllus! — sure there's none 
So like Bathyllus but the sun \ 
Oh! let this pictur'd god be mine, 
And keep the boy for Samos' shrine; 
Phoebus shall then Bathyllus be, 
Bathyllus then the deity! 

— But hold— forbear— . 

I see a godlike portrait there ; fcfc.] This is very 
spirited, but it requires explanation. While the artist 
is pursuing the portrait of Bathyllus, Anacreon, we 
must suppose, turns round and sees a picture of 
Apollo, which was intended for an altar at Samos ; 
he instantly tells the painter to cease his work; that 
this picture will serve for Bathyllus ; and that, when 
he goes to Samos, he may make an Apollo of the 
portrait of the boy which he had begun. 

" Bathyllus (says Madame Dacier) could not be 
more elegantly praised, and this one passage does 
him more honour than the statue, however beautiful 
it might be, which Polycrates raised to him." 



105 



ODE XVIII. 

Now the star of day is high, 
Fly, my girls, in pity fly, 
Bring me wine, in brimming urns, 
Cool my lip, it burns, it burns ! 
Sunn'd by the meridian fire, 
Panting, languid I expire ! 
Give me all those humid flowers, 
Drop them o'er my brow in showers. 



" An elegant translation of this ode may be found 
in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. v. p. 403." Degen. 

Bring me wine, in brimming urns, lsfc."\ Orig. zrtuv 
cifivsi. " The amystis was a method of drinking used 
among the Thracians. Thus Horace, Threicia vincat 
amystide." Mad. Dacier, Longepierre, Sec. &c. 

Parrhasius, in his 26th epistle (Thesaur. Critic. vol. 
i.) explains the amystis as a draught to be exhausted 
without drawing breath, " uno haustu." A note in the 
margin of this epistle of Parrhasius says, " Politianus 
vestem esse putabat," but I cannot find where. 

Give me all those humid Jloivers, &c.~\ By the origi- 
nal reading of this line, the poet says, " Give me the 



106 

Scarce a breathing chaplet now 
Lives upon my feverish brow; 
Every dewy rose I wear 
Sheds its tears, and withers there. 

flower of wine"— .Date flosculos Lysei, as it is in the 
version of Elias Andreas ; and 

Deh porgetimi del fiore 

Di quel almo e buon liquore, 

as Regnier has it, who supports the reading. Av6e$ 
would undoubtedly bear this application, which is 
somewhat similar to its import in the epigram of 
Simonides upon Sophocles: 

And flos in the Latin is frequently applied in this man- 
ner : thus Cethegus is called by Ennius, Flos inlibatus 
populi, suadseque medulla, " The immaculate flower 
of the people, and the very marrow of persuasion,'* 
in those verses cited by Aulus Gellius, lib. xii. which 
Cicero praised, and Seneca thought ridiculous. 

But in the passage before us, if we admit ixuwv, ac- 
cording to Faber's conjecture, the sense is sufficiently 
clear, and we need not have recourse to refinements. 

Every dewy rose I wear 

Sheds its tears, and withers there.] There are some 
beautiful lines, by Angerianus, upon a garland, which 
I cannot resist quoting here : 



107 

But for you, my burning mind! 
Oh! what shelter shall I find? 
Can the bowl, or flowret's dew, 
Cool the flame that scorches you ? 

Ante fores madid x sic sic pendete corollae, 
Mane orto imponet Cxlia vos capiti ; 

At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor, 
Dicite, non roris sed pluvia hxc lacrimx. 

By Celia's arbour all the night 

Hang, humid wreath, the lover's vow ; 

And haply, at the morning light, 

My love shall twine thee round her brow. 

Then, if upon her bosom bright 

Some drops of dew shall fall from thee, 

Tell her, they are not drops of night, 
But tears of sorrow shed by me I 

In the poem of Mr. Sheridan's, " Uncouth is this 
moss-covered grotto of stone," there is an idea very 
singularly coincident with this of Angerianus, in the 
stanza which begins, 

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch mayst preserve. 

But for you, my burning mind! t2*c.] The transition 
here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned ; but the 
commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a 
variety of readings and conjectures. 



108 



ODE XIX. 

Here recline you, gentle maid, 
Sweet is this imbowering shade ; 
Sweet the young, the modest trees, 
Ruffled by the kissing breeze ; 

The description of this bower is so natural and 
animated, that we cannot help feeling a degree of 
coolness and freshness while we read it. Longepierre 
has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia, the 
following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode : 

Ep«£gtf XOll KM.T* i ( UXV I^IV ZFITVV) U TO [AtXlfflOV 

npe$ pctXetKttg y%ei xixXtfiivx £s<pt/p»$. 
Hvide xeci xpxvio-ftoi ptXisxyig, sv6x [&iXitr$a>v 
How tpYipetiMig V7TV6V otyw xxXxptotg. 

Come, sit by the shadowy pine 
That covers my sylvan retreat; 

And see how the branches incline 
The breathing of zephyr to meet. 

See the fountain, that, flowing, diffuses 
Around me a glittering spray; 

By its brink, as the traveller muses, 
I sooth him to sleep with my lay ! 



109 

Sweet the little founts that weep, 
Lulling bland the mind to sleep ; 
Hark! they whisper as they roll, 
Calm persuasion to the soul; 

Here recline you, gentle maid, fcft\] The Vatican 
MS. reads /Zxfoxxx, which renders the whole poem 
metaphorical. Some commentator suggests the read- 
ing of /ZahXtev, which makes a pun upon the name ; 
a grace that Plato himself has condescended to in 
writing of his boy «r>i£. See the epigram of this 
philosopher, which I quote on the twenty-second 
ode. 

There is another epigram by this philosopher, 
preserved in Laertius, which turns upon the same 
word. 

AfJJg 73-piv (AM iXetfATTif tut l^UOUW i&0$, 

Nvv di B-xvav, XaCfATrug io"7rtpog if q>8if*tvoig» 

In life thou wert my morning-star, 

But now that death has stol'n thy light, 

Alas! thou shinest dim and far, 

Like the pale beam that weeps at night. 

In the Veneres Blyenburgicae, under the head 
of " allusiones," we find a number of such frigid 
conceits upon names, selected from the poets of the 
middle ages. 



110 

Tell me, tell me, is not this 
All a stilly scene of bliss? 
Who, my girl, would pass it by? 
Surely neither you nor I ! 

Who, my girl, would fiass it by ? 

Surely neither you nor J/] What a finish he gives 
to the picture by the simple exclamation of the 
original! In these delicate turns he is inimitable; 
and yet, hear what a French translator says on the 
passage: " This conclusion appeared to me too 
trifling- after such a description, and I thought 
proper to add somewhat to the strength of the 
original. 



Ill 



ODE XX. 

One day, the Muses twin'd the hands 
Of baby Love, with flow'ry bands; 
And to celestial Beauty gave 
The captive infant as her slave. 

By this allegory of the Muses making Cupid the 
prisoner of Beauty, Anacreon seems to insinuate 
the softening influence which a cultivation of poetry 
has over the mind, in making it peculiarly suscepti- 
ble to the impressions of beauty. 

Though in the following epigram, by the philoso- 
pher Plato, which is found in the third book of 
•Diogenes Laertius, the Muses are made to disavow 
all the influence of Love. 

A KvTTfM? Mxraio-t, xopxtria recv A$po2iTet9 
TtpoiT *j rof Eparcc vuuiv itpoTrXitrouctt* 

A* Moicxi -zs-oti Kycrp<y. Aps; rce, <?afivXot ravrst 
Hptv a tsitxtxi raro to ■zsotioxfio'j. 

" Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids;" 
Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms j 

" Or Love shall flutter in your classic shades, 
And make your grove the camp of Paphian arms I" 



112 

His mother comes with many a toy, 
To ransom her beloved boy ; 

" No," said the virgins of the tuneful bower, 
" We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art; 

Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power, 
His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart !" 

There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought 
of which was suggested by this ode. 

Scherzava dentro all' auree chiome Amore 
Dell' alma donna della vita mia: 

E tanta era il piacer ch' ei ne sentia, 
Che non sapea, ne volea uscirne fore. 

Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core, 
Si, che per forza ancor convien che stia: 

Tai lacci alta beltate orditi avia 

Del crespo crin, per farsi eterno onore. 

Onde offre infin dal ciel degna mercede, 
A chi scioglie il figliuol la bella dea 
Da tanti nodi, in ch' ella stretto il vede. 

Ma ei vinto a due occhi 1' arme cede : 
Et t' affatichi indarno, Citerea ; 
Che s' altri '1 scioglie, egli a legar si riede. 



113 

His mother sues, but all in vain I 
He ne'er will leave his chains again. 

Love, wandering through the golden maze 

Of my beloved's hair, 
Trac'd every lock with fond delays, 

And, doting, linger'd there. 

And soon he found 'twere vain to fly, 

His heart was close confin'd; 
And every curlet was a tie, 

A chain by Beauty twin'd. 

Now Venus seeks her boy's release, 

With ransom from above: 
But, Venus! let thy efforts cease, 

For Love's the slave of love. 
* And, should we loose his golden chain, 
The prisoner would return again! 

His mother comes, with many a toy, 

To ransom her beloved boy; ls?c,~\ Venus thus 

proclaims the reward for her fugitive child in the 

first idyll of Moschus: 

e O fAetvvroig ytpx$ s|s<, 
Ov yvptov to (piXxpcc, rv 3' w f«ve, noci srAsov e|s<?. 



114 

Nay, should they take his chains away, 
The little captive still would stay- 
" If this," he cries, " a bondage be, 
" Who could wish for liberty?" 



On him, who the haunts t)f my Cupid can show, 
A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow; 
But he, who can bring me the wanderer here, 
Shall have something more rapturous, something 
more dear. 

This " something more" is the quidquid post 
oscula dulce of Secundus. 

After this ode, there follow in the Vatican MS. 
these extraordinary lines: 

Htvdc&piKOV TO 2i /UOl fieXO£ 

ItvyKi^ua-oc^ rig zy%,ioi 
Tee, rpia rxvroc f-iot doxti 
Keci Aiovvaog UffiXQuv 
Kcci Tlxtpivi -zrccpetfcpoog 
Kcct ecvrog Epag kxv smut. 

These lines, which appear to me to have as little 
sense as metre, are most probably the interpolation 
of the transcriber. 



115 



ODE XXL 

Observe when mother earth is dry, 
She drinks the droppings of the sky ; 
And then the dewy cordial gives 
To ev'ry thirsty plant that lives. 

The commentators who have endeavoured to 
throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this 
beautiful trifle, require too much from Anacreontic 
philosophy. Monsieur Gail very wisely thinks that 
the poet uses the epithet ^Xxivvt, because black earth 
absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and 
accordingly he indulges us with an experimental 
disquisition on the subject. See Gail's notes. 

One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode, in an 
epitaph on a drunkard: 

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus 
Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit. 

Sic bibit assidue fontes et flumina Pontus, 
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas. 

Ne te igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse ; 
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manus. 
Hippolytus Capilupus. 



116 



The vapours, which at evening weep, 
Are beverage to the swelling deep ; 
And when the rosy sun appears, 
He drinks the ocean's misty tears. 



While life was mine, the little hour 

In drinking still unvaried flew ; 
I drank as earth imbibes the shower, 

Or as the rainbow drinks the dew ; 
As ocean quaffs the rivers up, 

Or flushing sun inhales the sea: 
Silenus trembled at my cup, 

And Bacchus was outdone by me ! 

I cannot omit citing those remarkable lines of 
Shakspeare, where the thoughts of the ode before 
us are preserved with such striking similitude: 

TIMON, ACT IV. 

I'll example you with thievery. 
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction 
Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief, 
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves 
The mounds into salt tears. The earth's a thief, 
That feeds, and breeds by a composture stol'n 
From general excrements. 



117 

The moon too quaffs her paly stream 
Of lustre, from the solar beam. 
Then, hence with all your sober thinking! 
Since Nature's holy law is drinking; 
I'll make the laws of nature mine, 
And pledge the universe in wine ! 



118 



ODE XXII. 



The Phrygian rock, that braves the storm, 
Was once a weeping matron's form; 
And Progne, hapless, frantic maid, 
Is now a swallow in the shade. 

Ogilvie, in his Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the 
Ancients, in remarking upon the Odes of Anacreon, 
says, " In some of his pieces there is exuberance and 
even wildness of imagination ; in that particularly, 
which is addressed to a young girl, where he wishes 
alternately to be transformed to a mirror, a coat, a 
stream, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes, for the 
different purposes which he recites: this is mere 
sport and wantonness." 

It is the wantonness however of a very graceful 
Muse; ludit amabiliter. The compliment of this 
ode is exquisitely delicate, and so singular for the 
period in which Anacreon lived, when the scale of 
love had not yet been graduated into all its little 
progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to 
question the authenticity of the poem, we should 
find a much more plausible argument in the features 
of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any 



119 

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine, 
To sparkle with that smile divine; 
And like my heart I then should be, 
Reflecting thee, and only thee! 

of those fastidious conjectures . upon which some 
commentators have presumed so far. Degen thinks 
it spurious, and De Pauw pronounces it to be 
miserable. Longepierre and Barnes refer us to 
several imitations of this ode, from which I shall 
only select an epigram of Dionyshis: 

E.r" ctiiut: yit&urj, t-j h. */• <ri.%%7Z Tzf ttvy&iy 
1.77,-iz yvftMmuSj y -*- fU —li'.iTZ z.xtc.:. 

E.r': etcn yiiiur., vtjtc ; - : ; : .. cC;XfU J0f**l 
A'.xu-rr,. Wfticx.: f-rir. >_.:,-:..-. 

Afzu-ir ftmXkn e*g £f rrnrc ff&K- 

I wish I could like zephyr steal 
To wanton o'er thy mazy vest ; 

And thou wouldst ope thy bosom-veil, 
And take me panting to thy breast! 

I wish I might a rose-bud grow, 

And thou wouldst cull me from the bower, 
And place me on that breast of snow, 

ere I should bloom, a winterr flower. 



120 

Or were I, love, the robe which flows 
O'er every charm that secret glows, 
In many a lucid fold to swim, 
And cling and grow to every limb ! 

I wish I were the lily's leaf, 

To fade upon that bosom warm ; 

There I should wither, pale and brief, 
The trophy of thy fairer form ! 

Allow me to add, that Plato has expressed as 
fanciful a wish in a distich preserved by Laertius: 

TO STELLA. 

Why dost thou gaze upon the sky ? 

• Oh ! that I were that spangled sphere, 
And every star should be an eye. 

To wonder on thy beauties here ! 

Apuleius quotes this epigram of the divine philo- 
sopher, to justify himself for his verses on Critias 
and Charinus. See his Apology, where he also 
adduces the example of Anacreon ; " Fecere tamen 
et alii talia, et si vos ignoratis, apud Grxcos Teius 
quidam, &c. &c." 



121 

Oh ! could I, as the streamlet's wave, 
Thy warmly-mellowing beauties lave, 
Or float as perfume on thine hair, 
And breathe my soul in fragrance there ! 
I wish I were the zone, that lies 
Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs ! 
Or like those envious pearls that show 
So faintly round that neck of snow, 
Yes, I would be a happy gem, 
Like them to hang, to fade like them. 

i" ivish I were the zone, that lies 

Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs. .'] This 
Teem* was a riband, or band, called by the Romans 
fascia and strophium, which the women wore for 
the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the 
bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial: 

Fascia crescentes domins compesce papillas. 

The women of Greece not only wore this zone, 
but condemned themselves to fasting, and made 
use of certain drugs and powders, for the same 
purpose. To these expedients they were compelled, 
in consequence of their inelegant fashion of com- 
pressing the waist into a very narrow compass, 
which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in 
the bosom. See Dioscorides, lib. v. 



122 

What more would thy Anacreon be ? 
Oh ! any thing that touches thee. 
Nay, sandals for those airy feet — 
Thus to be press'd by thee were sweet! 



Nay, sandals for those airy feet — 

Thus to be fires&'d by thee were sweet /] The sophist 
Philostratus, in one of his love-letters, has borrowed 
this thought; a k2it<>i -&ohs' a xocXXog z\evfapo$* & rpi- 
c-ivdoii [A.av eya zcci {totxctpiog zocv -stoLrnirni pi. " Oh lovely 
feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and 
blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me !" 
In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove: 

Oh ! that I were a glove upon that hand, 
That I might kiss that cheek ! 

And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with an 
idea somewhat like that of the thirteenth line : 

He, spying her, bounc'd in, where as he stood, 
" O Jove!" quoth she, " why was not I a flood?" 

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whim- 
sical farrago of " all such reading as was never 
read," there is a very old translation of this ode, 
before 1632. " Englished by Mr. B. Holiday in 
his Technog. act 1. scene 7." 



123 



ODE XXIII. 



I often" wish this languid lyre, 
This warbler of my soul's desire, 
Could raise the breath of song sublime^ 
To men of fame, in former time. 
But when the soaring theme I try, 
Along the chords my numbers die, 



This ode is first in the series of all the editions, 
and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an intro- 
duction to the rest; it however characterizes the 
genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, 
the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it. 

cum multo Venerem confundere mero 

Prxcepit Lyrici Teia Musa senis. Ovid. 

The twenty -sixth ode rv fav teyug ret BiGyis, might, 
with as much propriety, be the harbinger of his songs. 

Bion has expressed the sentiments of the ode 
before us with much simplicity in his fourth idyll. 
I have given it rather paraphrastically ; it has been 
so frequently translated, that I could not otherwise 
avoid triteness and repetition. 



124 

And whisper, with dissolving tone, 
" Our sighs are given to love alone!" 
Indignant at the feeble lay, 
I tore the panting chords away, 
Attun'd them to a nobler swell, 
And struck again the breathing shell; 
In all the glow of epic fire, 
To Hercules I wake the lyre ! 
But still its fainting sighs repeat, 
" The tale of love alone is sweet!" 

In all the glow of epic fire, 

To Hercules I wake the lyre!~\ Madame Dacier 
generally translates Avpu into a lute, which I believe is 
rather inaccurate. " D'expiiquer la lyre des anciens 
(says Monsieur Sorel) par un luth, c'est ignorer la 
difference qu'il y a entre ces deux instrumens de 
musique." Bibliotheque Francoise. 

But still its fainting sighs repeat, 

" The tale of love alone is sweet.'"'] The word etvn- 
yam, in the original, may imply that kind of musical 
dialogue practised by the ancients, in which the lyre 
was made to respond to the questions proposed by the 
singer. This was a method which Sappho used, as 
we are told by Hermogenes: " orotv Tyv Xvyuv z^ooru, 
Xo&irtpa KXi crocv eivrvi ot7roz.piVViTCii" Jlipi i2wv. Top. oiw. 



125 

Then fare thee well, seductive dream, 
That mad'st me follow Glory's theme ; 
For thou my lyre, and thou my heart, 
Shall never more in spirit part; 
And thou the flame shalt feel as well 
As thou the flame shalt sweetly tell ! 



126 



ODE XXIV. 

To all that breathe the airs of heaven, 
Some boon of strength has Nature given. 
When the majestic bull was born, 
She fenc'd his brow with wreathed horn. 



Henry Stephen has imitated the idea of this ode 
in the following lines of one of his poems : 

Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma, 
Et sua femineum possidet arma genus, 

Ungulaque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum, 
Armata est forma fcemina pulchra sua. 

And the same thought occurs in those lines, 
spoken by Corisca in Pastor Fido: 

Cosi noi la bellezza 

Ch 'e vertu nostra cosi propria, come 

La forza del leone 

E Tingegno de Thuomo. 

The lion boasts his savage powers, 
And lordly man his strength of mind; 

But beauty's charm is solely ours, 
Peculiar boon, by heaven assign 'd I 



127 

She arm'd the courser's foot of air, 
And wing'd with speed the panting hare. 
She gave the lion fangs of terror, 
And, on the ocean's crystal mirror, 
Taught the unnumber'd scaly throng 
To trace their liquid path along; 
While for the umbrage of the grove, 
She plum'd the warbling world of love. 
To man she gave the flame refin'd, 
The spark of heav'n — a thinking mind! 

" An elegant explication of the beauties of this 
ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm en den 
Anmerkk. Veber einige Oden des Anakr." 

To man she gave the Jiame refoi'd, 

The spark of heav'n — a thinking mind!] In my first 
attempt to translate this ode, I had interpreted ppov^aj, 
with Baxter and Barnes, as implying courage and 
military virtue ; but I do not think that the gallantry 
of the idea suffers by the import which I have now 
given to it. For, why need we consider this posses- 
sion of wisdom as exclusive? and in truth, as the 
design of Anacreon is to estimate the treasure of 



128 

And had she no surpassing treasure, 
For thee, oh woman ! child of pleasure ? 
She gave thee beauty — shaft of eyes, 
That every shaft of war outflies ! 
She gave thee beauty — blush of fire, 
That bids the flames of war retire ! 



beauty, above all the rest which Nature has distri- 
buted, it is perhaps even refining upon the delicacy 
of the compliment, to prefer the radiance of female 
charms to the cold illumination of wisdom and 
prudence; and to think that women's eyes are 

the books, the academies, 

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. 

She gave thee beauty — shaft of eyes, 

That every shaft of war outflies /] Thus Achilles 
Tatius: «#AAo? ofv-rgpo* rtrpaa-x.ii /SeAa? xxi %iu, r&iv 
oQdocXpav 11$ rvjv "^v^viv xecrxppu. O<p6ahpos yx(> o^og 
spartxa rpavpctri. " Beauty wounds more swiftly 
than the arrow, and passes through the eye to 
the very soul ; for the eye is the inlet to the wounds 
of love." 



129 

Woman ! be fair, we must adore thee ; 
Smile, and a world is weak before thee ! 

Woman/ be fair, we must adore thee; 

Smile, and a world is weak before thee!~\ Longe- 
pierre's remark here is very ingenious: u The 
Romans," says he, " were so convinced of the 
power of beauty, that they used a word implying 
strength in the place of the epithet beautiful. Thus 
Plautus, act 2. scene 2. Bacchid. 

Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa. 

' Fortis, id est formosa, 5 say Servius and Nonius." 



130 



ODE XXV. 

Once in each revolving year, 
Gentle bird! we find thee here. 
When Nature wears her summer vest, 
Thou com'st to weave thy simple nest; 
But when the chilling winter lowers, 
Again thou seek'st the genial bowers 
Of Memphis, or the shores of Nile, 
Where sunny hours of verdure smile. 
And thus thy wing of freedom roves, 
Alas! unlike the plumed loves, 

This is another ode addressed to the swallow. 
Alberti has imitated both in one poem, beginning 

Perch' io pianga al tuo canto 
Rondinella importuna, &c. 

Alas! unlike the plumed loves, 

That linger in this hapless breast, 

And never, never change their nest /] Thus Love 
is represented as a bird, in an epigram cited by 
Longepierre from the Anthologia: 



131 

That linger in this hapless breast, 
And never, never change their nest ! 
Still every year, and all the year, 
A flight of loves engender here ; 
And some their infant plumage try, 
And on a tender winglet fly; 

Am uoi $vvu [&iv sv xcccriv vi%o$ sp<wro?, 

Office, os a-tyx -zroQcis ro yXvtcv dccxpv Qzpst. 

Ov% i vv%, ov <pzy[og &toip.i<riv, asAA' vno QtXrpav 
H^g zr« xpxdiv) yvarog svss-< rwxos. 

£2 -zs-rxvot, /Levi x.cci zror i(pi7TTcca-dxi f&zv ipartf 
Ot^ecr, W7T07rTYlvett 2' 80' co-ov i<r%vZTl; 

'Tis Love that murmurs in my breast, 
And makes me shed the secret tear ; 

Nor day nor night my heart has rest, 
For night and day his voice I hear. 

A wound within my heart I find, 

And oh ! 'tis plain where Love has been ; 

For still he leaves a wound behind, 
Such as within my heart is seen. 

Oh bird of Love I with song so drear, 
Make not my soul the nest of pain ; 

Oh I let the wing which brought thee here, 
In pity waft thee hence again ! 



132 

While in the shell, impregn'd with fires. 
Cluster a thousand more desires ; 
Some from their tiny prisons peeping, 
And some in formless embryo sleeping. 
My bosom, like the vernal groves, 
Resounds with little warbling loves ; 
One urchin imps the other's feather, 
Then twin-desires they wing together, 
And still as they have learn'd to soar, 
The wanton babies teem with more. 
But is there then no kindly art, 
To chase these cupids from my heart? 
No, no ! I fear, alas ! I fear 
They will forever nestle here ! 



133 



ODE XXVI. 

Thy harp may sing of Troy's alarms, 
Or tell the tale of Theban arms ; 
With other wars my song shall burn, 
For other wounds my harp shall mourn. 
'Twas not the crested warrior's dart, 
Which drank the current of my heart; 
Nor naval arms, nor mailed steed, 
Have made this vanquish'd bosom bleed ; 
No — from an eye of liquid blue, 
A host of quiver'd cupids flew; 

" The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. 
Compare also Weisse Scherz. Lieder. lib. iii. der 
Soldat." Gail, Degen. 

No — -from an eye of liquid blue, 

A host of quiver'd cupids few ;] Longepierre has 
quoted part of an epigram from the seventh book of 
the Anthologia, which has a fancy something like 
this: 

■ Ov pi teXr,6ctg 



134 

And now my heart all bleeding lies 
Beneath this army of the eyes ! 



Archer Love 1 though slily creeping, 
Well I know where thou dost lie ; 

I saw thee through the curtain peeping, 
That fringes Zenophelia's eye. 

The poets abound with conceits on the archery 
of the eyes, but few have turned the thought so 
naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes 
of his mistress " un petit camp d'amours." 



135 



ODE XXVII. 

We read the flying courser's name 
Upon his side, in marks of flame; 
And, by their turban'd brows alone, 
The warriors of the east are known. 
But in the lover's glowing eyes, 
The inlet to his bosom lies ; 



This ode forms a part of the preceding in the 
Vatican MS. but I have conformed to the editions 
in translating them separately. 

" Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of 
Ramler Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumen- 
lese, lib. iv. p. 313." 

But in the lover's glowing eyes, 

The inlet to his bosom lies;~\ " We cannot see into 
the heart," says Madame Dacier. But the lover 
answers — 

II cor ne gli occhi et ne la fronte ho scritto. 

Monsieur La Fosse has given the following lines, 
as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon : 



136 

Through them we see the small faint mark, 
Where Love has dropp'd his burning spark ! 

Lorsque je vois un amant, 
II cache en vain son tourment, 
A le trahir tout conspire, 
Sa langueur, son embarras, 
Tout ce qu'il peut faire ou dire, 
Meme ce qu'il ne dit pas. 

In vain the lover tries to veil 

The flame which in his bosom lies ; 

His cheeks' confusion tells the tale, 
We read it in his languid eyes : 

And though his words the heart betray, 

His silence speaks e'en more than they. 



137 



ODE XXVIII. 

As in the Lemnian caves of fire, 
The mate of her who nurs'd desire 
Moulded the glowing steel, to form 
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm; 
While Venus every barb imbues 
With droppings of her honied dews ; 
And Love (alas the victim-heart ! ) 
Tinges with gall the burning dart; 



This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, 
who, I believe, was the author of that curious little 
work, called ' Hexameron Rustique.' He makes use 
of this, as well as the thirty -fifth, in his ingenious 
but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the 
Nymphs. Journee Quatrieme. 

While Love (alas the victim-heart I ) 

Tinges with gall the burning darts'] Thus Claudian : 

Labuntur gemini fontes, hie dulcis, amarus 
Alter, et infusis corrumpit mella venenis, 
Unde Cupidineas armavit fama sagittas. 



138 

Once, to this Lemnian cave of flame, 
The crested Lord of battles came; 

In Cyprus' isle two rippling fountains fall, 
And one with honey flows, and one with gall : 
In these, if we may take the tale from fame, 
The son of Venus dips his darts of flame. 

See the ninety -first emblem of Alciatus, on the 
close connexion which subsists between sweets and 
bitterness. Apes ideo pungunt (says Petronius) quia 
ubi dulce, ibi et acidum invenies. 

The allegorical description of Cupid's employ- 
ment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in 
fancy, though not in delicacy: 

ferus et Cupido 



Semper ardentes acuens sagittas 
Cote cruenta. 

And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts, 
Upon a whetstone stain'd with blood of hearts. 

Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat 
softened the image by the omission of the epithet 
u cruenta." 

Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas ? Eleg. 1 . 



139 

'Twas from the ranks of war he rush'd, 
His spear with many a life-drop blush'd ! 
He saw the mystic darts, and smil'd 
Derision on the archer-child. 
" And dost thou smile?" said little Love; 
" Take this dart, and thou mayst prove, 
" That though they pass the breeze's flight, 
" My bolts are not so feathery light." 
He took the shaft — and oh ! thy look, 
Sweet Venus ! when the shaft he took — 
He sigh'd, and felt the urchin's art; 
He sigh'd, in agony of heart, 
" It is not light — I die with pain! 
" Take — take thy arrow back again." 
" No," said the child, " it must not be, 
" That little dart was made for thee!" 



140 



ODE XXIX. 

Yes — loving is a painful thrill, 
And not to love more painful still; 

Yes — loving is a painful thrill^ 

And not to love more painful still; lsfc.~\ Monsieur 
Menage, in the following Anacreontic, enforces the 
necessity of loving. 

Hspt rx $ziv QtXvicrcci. 
Miyoc S-avpct rav occi^av 

Q>iXiv}<jaiv ot <rotpl<?oii. 

To thcvov ra Xatppovio'x.ii) 

H,a<pmq TZOLTYIQ OC7T(X.O-^, 

Ti d' ocnv yzvoir Eparog; 
Axovyi ftev &<ri "^vftqg.* 

* This line is borrowed from an epigram by Alpheus of 
Mitylene. 

tyvX,*? ifiv Ep#j cckovvi. 

Menage, I think, says somewhere, that he was the first 
who produced this epigram to the world. 



141 

But surely 'tis the worst of pain, 
To love and not be lov'd again ! 
Affection now has fled from earth, 
Nor fire of genius, light of birth, 

IlTifivyzariv zi$ OAw^zroP 
KeCTeix.U t uivag etvetipit. 
Bpx$2cc$ TiTViyfteVOlfft 
BsXisenv s%ocyitpu. 
Ilvfi Xa.^7rot^o<; (puiivc* 
Tv7eecp&>T^ag y-yJccipu. 
QtXwpiv %v e YETTE, 
<btXwpiv a troupe. 
Apneas "hi Xoidopavri 
Ayi%<; iparo&g vipm 
Kocx-ov iv%ofAsct to flavor 
'ivot, [&n ^vvectr tKHVOg 
<btteuv rs kcci tptXeieQeti. 

TO PETER DANIEL HUETT. 

Thou! of tuneful bards the first, 
Thou 1 by all the graces nurst ; 
Friend ! each other friend above, 
Come with me, and learn to love. 
Loving is a simple lore, 
Graver men have learn'd before ; 
Nay, the boast of former ages, 
Wisest of the wisest sages, 



142 

Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile 
From beauty's cheek one favouring smile. 
Gold is the woman's only theme, 
Gold is the woman's only dream. 

Sophroniscus' prudent son, 
Was by love's illusion won, 
Oh 1 how heavy life would move, 
If we knew not how to love I 
Love's a whetstone to the mind ; 
Thus 'tis pointed, thus refin'd. 
When the soul dejected lies, 
Love can waft it to the skies ; 
When in languor sleeps the heart, 
Love can wake it with his dart ; 
When the mind is dull and dark, 
Love can light it with his spark. 
Come, oh ! come then, let us haste 
All the bliss of love to taste ; 
Let us love both night and day, 
Let us love our lives away ! 
And when hearts, from loving free, 
(If indeed such hearts there be,) 
Frown upon our gentle flame, 
And the sweet delusion blame ; 
This shall be my only curse, 
(Could I, could I wish them worse?) 
May they ne'er the rapture prove 
Of the smile from lips we love ! 



143 

Oh ! never be that wretch forgiven — 
Forgive him not, indignant heaven ! 
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore, 
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore. 
Since that devoted thirst began, 
Man has forgot to feel for man; 
The pulse of social life is dead, 
And all its fonder feelings fled ! 
War too has sullied Nature's charms, 
For gold provokes the world to arms ! 
And oh ! the worst of all its art, 
I feel it breaks the lover's heart ! 



144 



ODE XXX. 

'Tw as in an airy dream of night, 
I fancied, that I wing'd my flight 
On pinions fleeter than the wind, 
While little Love, whose feet were twin'd 
(I know not why) with chains of lead, 
Pursued me as I trembling fled; 
Pursued — and could I e'er have thought ? — 
Swift as the moment I was caught ! 
What does the wanton Fancy mean 
By such a strange, illusive scene ? 
I fear she whispers to my breast, 
That you, my girl, have stol'n my rest; 

Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet 
married very late in life. I do not perceive any 
thing in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, 
except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid ; and I 
must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame 
Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always 
too fond of pleasure to marry. 



145 

That though my fancy, for a while, 
Has hung on many a woman's smile, 
I soon dissolv'd the passing vow, 
And ne'er was caught by love till now! 



146 



ODE XXXI. 

Arm'd with hyacinthine rod, 
(Arms enough for such a god,) 
Cupid bade me wing my pace, 
And try with him the rapid race. 

The design of this little fiction is to intimate, 
that much greater pain attends insensibility than 
can ever result from the tenderest impressions of 
love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram 
(I do not know where he found it), which has 
some similitude to this ode: 

Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis 

Carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam ; 
Cum me sxvus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis 

Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet. 
Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas, 

Solus Io, solus, dure jacere potes? 
Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunioaque soluta, 

Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio. 
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget ; rursumque redire 

Pcenitet ; et pudor est stare via media. 



147 

O'er the wild torrent, rude and deep, 
By tangled brake and pendent steep, 
With weary foot I panting flew, 
My brow was chill with drops of dew. 

Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque feramm, 
Et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum. 

Solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque, 
Et sequor imperium, sseve Cupido, tuum. 

Upon my couch I lay, at night profound, 

My languid eyes in magic slumber bound, 

When Cupid came and snatch'd me from my bed, 

And forc'd me many a weary way to tread. 

M What'." said the god, " shall you, whose vows are 

known, 
" Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?" 
I rise and follow ; all the night I stray, 
Unshelter'd, trembling, doubtful of my way. 
Tracing with naked foot the painful track, 
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back. 
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interrM, 
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard ; 
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest, 
Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, 
Wander the world around, unknowing where, 
The slave of love, the victim of despair ! 



148 

And now my soul, exhausted, dying, 
To my lip was faintly flying; 
And now I thought the spark had fled, 
When Cupid hover'd o'er my head, 

My brow was chill with drops of dew.] I have 
followed those who read tu?iv l^fag for -nn^iv vdpog; 
the former is partly authorised by the MS. which 
reads i&iipev i^pa$. 

And now my soul, exhausted, dying, 

To my lift was faintly flying; &c."] In the original, 
he says, his heart flew to his nose ; but our manner 
more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the 
effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a 
distich, quoted by Aulus Gellius: 

HA0s yoc^ k vMpav cog $ictQvi<roft,&vvi. 

Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip, 

And drink thy breath, in melting twine, 

My soul then flutters to my lip, 
Ready to fly and mix with thine. 

Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epi- 
gram, in which we find many of those mignardises 
of expression, which mark the effemination of the 
Latin language. 



149 

And fanning light his breezy plume, 
Recaird me from my languid gloom; 
Then said, in accents half-reproving, 
" Why hast thou been a foe to loving ?" 

And fanning light his breezy filume, 

Recalled me from my languid gloom;] " The facility 
with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the 
sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes 
which he may occasion." La Fosse. 



150 



ODE XXXII. 

Strew me a breathing bed of leaves, 
Where lotus with the myrtle weaves; 
And while in luxury's dream I sink, 
Let me the balm of Bacchus drink! 

We here have the poet, in his true attributes, 
reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup- 
bearer. Some interpreters have ruined the picture 
by making Ep? the name of his slave. None but 
Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho 
has assigned this office to Venus, in a fragment. 
EA0e, Kysrp, x^vviumviv tv x.vhtx.i<r<riv u&pai? a-vfA/^ifciyfiivcv 
B-eiXien<ri vtzret£ oivo%o%cro6 raronri vols Iroct^tg i[*oi$ yg koii 

Which may be thus paraphrased : 

Hither Venus i queen of kisses, 
This shall be the night of blisses ! 
This the night, to friendship dear, 
Thou shalt be our Hebe here. 
Fill the golden brimmer high, 
Let it sparkle like thine eye ! 
Bid the rosy current gush, 
Let it mantle like thy blush ! 



151 

In this delicious hour of joy, 

Young Love shall be my goblet-boy; 

Folding his little golden vest, 

With cinctures, round his snowy breast, 

Himself shall hover by my side, 

And minister the racy tide ! 

Swift as the wheels that kindling roll, 

Our life is hurrying to the goal : 

A scanty dust, to feed the wind, 

Is all the trace 'twill leave behind. 

Why do we shed the rose's bloom 

Upon the cold, insensate tomb ? 

Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath, 

Affect the slumbering chill of death ? 

Venus ! hast thou e'er above 
Seen a feast so rich in love ? 
Not a soul that is not mine ! 
Not a soul that is not thine ! 

" Compare with this ode," says the German 
commentator, " the beautiful poem in Ramler's 
Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 296. Amor als Diener." 



152 

No, no; I ask no balm to steep 
With fragrant tears my bed of sleep : 
But now, while every pulse is glowing, 
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing; 
Now let the rose, with blush of fire, 
Upon my brow its scent expire; 
And bring the nymph with floating eye, 
Oh! she will teach me how to die! 
Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire, 
To join the blest elysian choir, 
With wine, and love, and blisses dear, 
I'll make my own elysium here ! 



153 



ODE XXXIII. 

'Twas noon of night, when round the pole 
The sullen Bear is seen to roll ; 
And mortals, wearied with the day, 
Are slumbering all their cares away : 
An infant, at that dreary hour, 
Came weeping to my silent bower, 
And wak'd me with a piteous prayer, 
To save him from the midnight air! 
" And who art thou," I waking cry, 
" That bid'st my blissful visions fly?" 



Monsieur Bernard, the author of l'Art d'aimer, 
has written a ballet called " Les Surprises de 
TAmour," in which the subject of the third entree 
is Anacreon, and the story of this ode suggests 
one of the scenes. CEuvres de Bernard. Anac. 
scene 4th. 

The German annotator refers us here to an 
imitation by Uz, lib. hi. " Amor und sein Bruder," 
and a poem of Kleist die Heilung. La Fontaine has 
translated, or rather imitated this ode* 



154 

" O gentle sire!" the infant said, 

" In pity take me to thy shed; 

" Nor fear deceit: a lonely child 

" I wander o'er the gloomy wild. 

" Chill drops the rain, and not a ray 

" Illumes the drear and misty way!" 

I hear the baby's tale of woe; 

I hear the bitter night-winds blow; 

And sighing for his piteous fate, 

I trimm'd my lamp and op'd the gate. 

'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, 

His pinion sparkled through the night ! 

I knew him by his bow and dart; 

I knew him by my fluttering heart ! 

" And who art thou" I waking cry> 

" That bid' st my blissful visions jly?"~\ Anacreon 
appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, 
by the lively regret which he expresses at being 
disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the 
odes x. and xxxvii. 

9 Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, £sV.] See 
the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in 
his first idyll. 



155 

I take him in, and fondly raise 

The dying embers' cheering blaze; 

Press from his dank and clinging hair 

The crystals of the freezing air, 

And in my hand and bosom hold 

His little fingers thrilling cold. 

And now the embers' genial ray 

Had warm'd his anxious fears away; 

" I pray thee," said the wanton child, 

(My bosom trembled as he smil'd,) 

" I pray thee let me try my bow, 

" For through the rain I've wander 'd so, 

fi That much I fear, the ceaseless shower 

" Has injur'd its elastic power." 

The fatal bow the urchin drew ; 

Swift from the string the arrow flew ; 

Oh ! swift it flew as glancing flame, 

And to my very soul it came ! 

" Fare thee well," I heard him say, 

As laughing wild he wing'd away ; 



156 

" Fare thee well, for now I know 
" The rain has not relax 'd my bow; 
" It still can send a madd'ning dart, 
" As thou shalt own with all thy heart V ? 



157 



ODE XXXIV. 



Oh thou, of all creation blest, 
Sweet insect! that delight'st to rest 
Upon the wild wood's leafy tops, 
To drink the dew that morning drops, 



Father Rapin, in a Latin ode addressed to the 
grasshopper, has preserved some of the thoughts 
of our author: 

O quze virenti graminis in toro, 
Cicada, blande sidis, et herbidos 

Saltus oberras, otiosos 

Ingeniosa ciere cantus. 
Seu forte adultis floribus incubas, 
Cceli caducis ebria fletibus, &c. 

Oh thou, that on the grassy bed 
Which Nature's vernal hand has spread, 
Reclinest soft, and tun'st thy song, 
The dewy herbs and leaves among I 
Whether thou ly'st on springing flowers, 
Drunk with the balmy morning-showers, 
Or, &c. 



158 

And chirp thy song with such a glee, 
That happiest kings may envy thee ! 
Whatever decks the velvet field, 
Whate'er the circling seasons yield, 
Whatever buds, whatever blows, 
For thee it buds, for thee it grows. 
Nor yet art thou the peasant's fear, 
To him thy friendly notes are dear; 
For thou art mild as matin dew, 
And still, when summer's flowery hue 
Begins to paint the bloomy plain, 
We hear thy sweet, prophetic strain ; 

See what Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 
93 and 185. 

And chzrfi thy song with such a glee, Ifc] " Some 
authors have affirmed (says Madame Dacier), that 
it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that 
the females are silent; and on this circumstance is 
founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, 
who says str eicriv oi rsrrtyig %x iv^oupiovss) av rxtg 
ywu^tv %y on av (paws vn; l are not the grasshoppers 
happy in having dumb wives'?" This note is 
originally Henry Stephen's ; but I chose rather to 
make Madame Dacier my authority for it. 



159 

Thy sweet, prophetic strain we hear, 

And bless the notes and thee revere ! 

The Muses love thy shrilly tone ; 

Apollo calls thee all his own; 

'Twas he who gave that voice to thee, 

'Tis he who tunes thy minstrelsy. 

Unworn by age's dim decline, 

The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. 

Melodious insect! child of earth! 

In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth; 



The Muses love thy shrilly tone; tsfc.'] Phile, de 
Animal. Proprietat. calls this insect Mx?oci$ (piXo$, the 
darling of the Muses, and Mxo-av opviv, the bird of the 
Muses ; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence 
to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of 
Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius: 

H^ugTHK tstt i%iv ttroypcttpos) oiQ' ixothvipx 

This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, y. 
where there occurs the very same simile. 



160 

Exempt from every weak decay, 
That withers vulgar frames away ; 
With not a drop of blood to stain 
The current of thy purer vein; 
So blest an age is pass'd by thee, 
Thou seem'st — a little deity ! 

Melodious insect! child of earth!"] Longepierre 
has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of 
Antipater, from the first book of the Anthologia, 
where he prefers the grasshopper to the swan: 

Apxs< nrrtyx? ft.i6v<rcii dpcrog, ctXXoc, -zriovTis 

AldilV X,VKV0iV StFl ytyrtVOTipoi. 

In dew, that drops from morning's wings, 

The gay Cicada sipping floats ; 
And drunk with dew his matin sings 

Sweeter than any cygnet's notes. 



161 

ODE XXXV. 

Cupid once upon a bed 
Of roses laid his weary head ; 
Luckless urchin, not to see 
Within the leaves a slumbering bee! 



Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his 
nineteenth idyll, but is very inferior, I think, to his 
original, in delicacy of point and naivete of expres- 
sion. Spencer, in one of his smaller compositions, 
has sported more diffusely on the same subject. 
The poem to which I allude, begins thus: 

Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering 

All in his mother's lap ; 
A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring, 

About him flew by hap, &c. &c. 

In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is 
one by Luxorius, correspondent somewhat with the 
turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his 
mother of being wounded by a rose. 

The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. 
The infantine complainings of the little god, and 



162 

The bee awak'd — with anger wild 
The bee awak'd, and stung the child. 

the natural and impressive reflection which they 
draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. 
I hope I shall be pardoned for introducing another 
Greek Anacreontic of Monsieur Menage, not for 
its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for 
some faint traces of this natural simplicity, which 
it appears to me to have preserved: 

Epcys tsoi? IV %6f>Sl0tt$ 
Tav zrotohvav etarov 
Tyiv [aoi <p<Aj]v Kooivvxy 
'£lg ztciiv, cog -srpog xvtw 
Ylpoo-idpupi TpoiftViXa 
Aio'vpoig Tiftiioois ecnrav 

<&lX&l /AS, jlAYlTify it7F€. 

KeiXxpivn Kootvvoty 
£lg 'zrc&pfavog fttv y<rc&. 

K OiVTOg Oi OVO-ftipollVM, 

*£lg opfAotri -ztXccvvOus, 

Ey&> os oi ar#p#5Y«j, 
Mvi "bvo-yj^oiivZ) (pmpt. 
K.V7TQIV Tt KXi Kogivvxv 

Aiccyvavoti ax, iy$i<n 

Kxi 01 fiXlTJOVTig 0%V. 



163 

Loud and piteous are his cries; 

To Venus quick he runs, he flies ! 

" Oh mother! — I am wounded through — 

" I die with pain — in sooth I do! 

As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, 
The flowret of the virgin train, 
My soul's Corinna lightly play'd, 
Young Cupid saw the graceful maid ; 
He saw, and in a moment flew, 
And round her neck his arms he threw; 
And said, with smiles of infant joy, 
" Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!" 
Unconscious of a mother's name, 
The modest virgin blush'd with shame ! 
And angry Cupid, scarce believing 
That vision could be so deceiving, 
Thus to mistake his Cyprian dame, 
The little infant blush'd with shame. 
" Be not asham'd, my boy" I cried, 
For I was lingering by his side, 
" Corinna and thy lovely mother, 
" Believe me, are so like each other, 
" That clearest eyes are oft betray'd, 
" And take thy Venus for the maid." 

Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated 
this ode of Anacreon. 



164 

" Stung by some little angry thing, 

" Some serpent on a tiny wing — 

" A bee it was — for once, I know 

" I heard a rustic call it so." 

Thus he spoke, and she the while 

Heard him with a soothing smile; 

Then said, " My infant, if so much 

" Thou feel the little wild-bee's touch, 

" How must the heart, ah Cupid! be, 

" The hapless heart that's stung by thee!" 



165 



ODE XXXVI. 

If hoarded gold possess'd a power 
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour, 
And purchase from the hand of death 
A little span, a moment's breath, 
How I would love the precious ore ! 
And every day should swell my store ; 
That when the Fates would send their minion , 
To waft me off on shadowy pinion, 



Monsieur Fontenelle has translated this ode, in 
his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the 
shades, where he bestows the prize of wisdom upon 
the poet. 

a The German imitators of it are, Lessing, in 
his poem ' Gestern Briider, &c.' Gleim, in the ode 
* An den Tod,' and Schmidt, in der Poet. Blumenl. 
Gotting. 1783. p. 7." Degen. 

That when the Fates would send their minion, 

To waft me off en shadowy fiinion, £j?c] The com- 
mentators, who are so fond of disputing " de lana 
caprina," have been very busy on the authority of 



166 

I might some hours of life obtain, 
And bribe him back to hell again. 
But, since we ne'er can charm away 
The mandate of that awful day, 
Why do we vainly weep at fate, 
And sigh for life's uncertain date? 
The light of gold can ne'er illume 
The dreary midnight of the tomb ! 
And why should I then pant for treasures ? 
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures; 
The goblet rich, the board of friends, 
Whose flowing souls the goblet blends ! 

the phrase a uv B-umv i%ihh. The reading of \v up 
Goivxrog i%zXh, which De Medenbach proposes in 
his Amoenitates Litterariaj, was already hinted by 
Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth 
notice. 

The goblet rich, the board of friends, 

Whose flowing souls the goblet blends!] This com- 
munion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of 
Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of 
the following scholium, where the blessings of life 
are enumerated with proverbial simplicity. c ry<#m<* 



167 

Mine be the nymph, whose form reposes 
Seductive on that bed of roses ; 
And oh ! be mine the soul's excess, 
Expiring in her warm caress ! 

ftiv fltg/ro* ctv^gi B-M1T0. Aevrsgav ^g, KoiXov Qvyiv yiviff6eci. 
To Tgirov 2s, -zs-Xaruv uhoXag. Kxi ro TirccgT6v 9 crvvqGxv 
f&ircc mm QiXav. 

Of mortal blessings here, the first is health, 

And next, those charms by which the eye we move ; 

The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth, 
And then, an intercourse with those we love I 



168 



ODE XXXVII. 

'Twas night, and many a circling bowl 
Had deeply warm'd my swimming soul ; 
As lull'd in slumber I was laid, 
Bright visions o'er my fancy play'd! 

" Compare with this ode the beautiful poem ( der 
Traum' of Uz." Degen. 

Monsieur Le Fevre, in a note upon this ode, enters 
into an elaborate and learned justification of drunk- 
enness ; and this is probably the cause of the severe 
reprehension, which I believe he suffered for his 
Anacreon. " Fuit olim fateor (says he in a note upoix 
Longinus), cum Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo 
ilia me perditissima fcemina pene miserum perdidit 
cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone (Anacreontem 
dico, si nescis, Lector), noli sperare, Sec. Sec." He 
adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who 
allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men 
arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes 
the following line from Alexis, which he says no 
one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can 
hesitate to confess the truth of: 

" No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man." 



169 

"With virgins, blooming as the dawn, 
I seem'd to trace the opening lawn; 
Light, on tiptoe bath'd in dew, 
We flew, and sported as we flew ! 
Some ruddy striplings, young and sleek, 
With blush of Bacchus on their cheek, 
Saw me trip the flowery wild 
With dimpled girls, and slyly smil'd; 
Smil'd indeed with wanton glee, 
But, ah! 'twas plain they envied me. 
And still I flew — and now I caught 
The panting nymphs, and fondly thought 
To kiss — when all my dream of joys, 
Dimpled girls and ruddy boys, 

—when all my dream of joy s, 
Dimfiled girls and ruddy boys, 
All were gone!] " Nonnus says of Bacchus, almost 
in the same words that Anacreon uses, 

Waking, he lost the phantom's charms, 

He found no beauty in his arms ; 

Again to slumber he essay'd, 

Again to clasp the shadowy maid ! Longepierre. 



170 

All were gone! " Alas!" I said, 

Sighing for th' illusions fled, 

" Sleep! again my joys restore, 

" Oh! let me dream them o'er and o'er!" 



" Sleep. ! again my joys restore, 

" Oh! let , me dream them o'er and o'er!"] Doctor 
Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, animadverting 
upon the commentators of that poet, who pretended, 
in every little coincidence of thought, to detect an 
imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the follow- 
ing words to the line of Anacreon before us: "I 
have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing 
dream, says, i I cried to sleep again,' the author 
imitates Anacreon, who had, like any other man, 
the same wish on the same occasion." 



171 



ODE XXXVIII. 

Let us drain the nectar'd bowl, 
Let us raise the song of soul 
To him, the God who loves so well 
The nectar'd bowl, the choral swell ! 
Him, who instructs the sons of earth 
To thrid the tangled dance of mirth ; 
Him, who was nurs'd with infant Love, 
And cradled in the Paphian grove ; 
Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms 
Has fondled in her twining arms. 



" Compare with this beautiful ode the verses of 
Hagedorn, lib. v. das Gesellschaftliche ; and of 
Burger, p. 51, Sec. &c." Degen. 
Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms 
Has fondled in her twining arms.'] Robertellus, upon 
the epithalamium of Catullus, mentions an ingenious 
derivation of Cytherea, the name of Venus, ar«p# to 
xivOew t»; 8p#T«s, which seems to hint that " Love's 
fairy favours are lost when not concealed." 



172 

From him that dream of transport flows, 
Which sweet intoxication knows ; 
With him, the brow forgets to darkle, 
And brilliant graces learn to sparkle. 
Behold ! my boys a goblet bear, 
Whose sunny foam bedews the air. 
Where are now the tear, the sigh? 
To the winds they fly, they fly ! 
Grasp the bowl ; in nectar sinking, 
Man of sorrow, drown thy thinking ! 
Oh ! can the tears we lend to thought 
In life's account avail us aught ? 
Can we discern, with all our lore, 
The path we're yet to journey o'er? 
No, no ! the walk of life is dark ; 
'Tis wine alone can strike a spark ! 

JVo, no / the walk of life is dark ; 

'Tis wine alone can strike a spark!"] The brevity of 
life allows arguments for the voluptuary as well as 
the moralist. Among many parallel passages which 
Longepierre has adduced, I shall content myself 
with this epigram from the Anthologia: 



173 

Then let me quaff the foamy tide, 

And through the dance meandering glide ; 

Let me imbibe the spicy breath 

Of odours chaf 'd to fragrant death ; 

Or from the kiss of love inhale 

A more voluptuous, richer gale! 



Ax<rxp,sv6i, n^oc/i, srvKcMrapiQcit,, y.cci rov ccKgccror 
EXuafiiv, KvXtKxg f&u£ovxg otgauivoi. 

Txiog o xoa^ovrav z<?i fiiog. urec ret XoiTret 
r»g#j xaXva-ii, xect ro nXog S-ocvarog. 

Of which the following is a loose paraphrase : 

Fly, my belov'd, to yonder stream, 
We'll plunge us from the noontide beam ; 
Then cull the rose's humid bud, 
And dip it in our goblet's flood. 
Our age of bliss, my nymph, shall fly, 
As sweet, though passing, as that sigh, 
Which seems to whisper o'er your lip, 
" Come, while you may of rapture sip." 
For age will steal the rosy form, 
And chill the pulse, which trembles warm I 
And death — alas ! that hearts, which thrill 
Like yours and mine, should e'er be still \ 



174 

To souls, that court the phantom Care, 
Let him retire and shroud him there ; 
While we exhaust the nectar 'd bowl, 
And swell the choral song of soul 
To him, the God who loves so well 
The nectar 'd bowl, the choral swell! 



175 



ODE XXXIX. 

How I love the festive boy, 
Tripping wild the dance of joy! 
How I love the mellow sage, 
Smiling through the veil of age ! 
And whene'er this man of years 
In the dance of joy appears, 
Age is on his temples hung, 
But his heart — his heart is young ! 

Age is on his temples hung, 

But his heart — his heart is young /] Saint Pavin 
makes the same distinction in a sonnet to a young 
girl: 

Je sais bien que les destinees 
Ont mal compassee nos annees, 
Ne regardez que mon amour. 

Peut-etre en serez vous emue, 
II est jeune et n'est que du jour, 
Belle Iris, que je vous ai vu. 



176 

Fair and young, thou bloomest now, 
And I full many a year have told ; 

But read the heart and not the brow, 
Thou shalt not find my love is old ; 

My love's a child ; and thou canst say 
How much his little age may be, 

For he was born the very day 
That first I set my eyes on thee S 



177 



ODE XL. 

I know that Heaven ordains me here, 
To run this mortal life's career; 
The scenes which I have journied o'er, 
Return no more — alas! no more; 
And all the path I've yet to go, 
I neither know nor ask to know. 
Then surely, Care, thou canst not twine 
Thy fetters round a soul like mine; 
No, no ! the heart that feels with me, 
Can never be a slave to thee ! 



JVb, no I the heart that feels with me, 

Can never be a slave to thee!~\ Longepierre quotes 
an epigram here from the Anthologia, on account 
of the similarity of a particular phrase ; it is by no 
means Anacreontic, but has an interesting simplicity, 
which induced me to paraphrase it, and may atone 
for its intrusion. 

EAtt<s koci <rv rvfcn ft&yot, ^capers, rov Xiptv ivpov. 



178 

And oh ! before the vital thrill, 
Which trembles at my heart, is still, 
I'll gather Joy's luxuriant flowers, 
And gild with bliss my fading hours; 
Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom, 
And Venus dance me to the tomb ! 



At length to Fortune, and to you, 
Delusive Hope 1 a last adieu. 
The charm that once beguil'd is o'er, 
And I have reach'd my destin'd shore ! 
Away, away ! your flattering arts 
May now betray some simpler hearts, 
And you will smile at their believing, 
And they shall weep at your deceiving I 

Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom, 

And Venus dance me to the tomb!"] The same 
commentator has quoted an epitaph, written upon 
our poet by Julian, where he makes him give the 
precepts of good fellowship even from the tomb. 

ILvm, -zrpiv rocvrnv otp(pt£ct}w<rt)& koviv. 

This lesson oft in life I sung, 

And from my grave I still shall cry, 

" Drink, mortal ! drink, while time is young, 
" Ere death has made thee cold as I." 



179 



ODE XLL 

When Spring begems the dewy scene, 
How sweet to walk the velvet green, 
And hear the Zephyr's languid sighs, 
As o'er the scented mead he flies ! 
How sweet to mark the pouting vine, 
Ready to fall in tears of wine ; 
And with the maid, whose every sigh 
Is love and bliss, entranc'd to lie 
Where the imbowering branches meet — 
Oh! is not this divinely sweet? 



And with the maid, whose every sigh 
Is love and bliss, £3V.] Thus Horace : 

Quid habes illius, illius 
Qua spirabat amores, 
Qua me surpuerat mihi. 

Bookiv. Ode 13. 

And does there then remain but this, 
And hast thou lost each rosy ray 

Of her, who breath'd the soul of bliss, 
And stole me from myself away ! 



180 



ODE XLIL 



Yes, be the glorious revel mine, 
Where humour sparkles from the wine ! 
Around me, let the youthful choir 
Respond to my beguiling lyre; 

The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly- 
depicted. His love of social, harmonized pleasures, 
is expressed with a warmth, amiable and endearing. 
Among the epigrams imputed to Anacreon is the 
following ; it is the only one worth translation, and 
it breathes the same sentiments with this ode : 

AAA' oV'S Maeiav ts, xeti ecyXeta ^ag 'AtypodtrvjS 
SvftfUa-yM) spetTHs f&VYio-KiToti ivtyyotrvvvis* 

When to the lip the brimming cup is prest, 
And hearts are all afloat upon the stream ; 

Then banish from my board th* unpolish'd guest, 
Who makes the feats of war his barbarous theme. 

But bring the man, who o'er his goblet wreathes 
The Muse's laurel with the Cyprian flower; 

Oh I give me him, whose heart expansive breathes 
All the refinements of the social hour. 



181 

And while the red cup circles round, 

Mingle in soul as well as sound ! 

Let the bright nymph, with trembling eye, 

Beside me all in blushes lie ; 

And, while she weaves a frontlet fair 

Of hyacinth to deck my hair, 

Oh! let me snatch her sidelong kisses, 

And that shall be my bliss of blisses ! 

My soul, to festive feeling true, 

One pang of envy never knew; 

And little has it learn'd to dread 

The gall that envy's tongue can shed. 

Away — I hate the slanderous dart, 

Which steals to wound the unwary heart; 

And oh ! I hate, with all my soul, 

Discordant clamours o'er the bowl, 

Where every cordial heart should be 

Attun'd to peace and harmony. 

Come, let us hear the soul of song 

Expire the silver harp along; 



182 

And through the dance's ringlet move, 
With maidens mellowing into love : 
Thus simply happy, thus at peace, 
Sure such a life should never cease ! 



183 



ODE XLIII. 



While our rosy fillets shed 
Blushes o'er each fervid head, 
With many a cup and many a smile 
The festal moments we beguile. 
And while the harp, impassion'd, flings 
Tuneful rapture from the strings, 
Some airy nymph, with fluent limbs, 
Through the dance luxuriant swims, 



And while the harp, impassioned, flings 
Tuneful rapture from the strings, fcfc.] On the 
barbiton an host of authorities may be collected, 
which, after all, leave us ignorant of the nature of 
the instrument. There is scarcely any point upon 
which we are so totally uninformed as the music of 
the ancients. The authors,* extant upon the subject, 
are, I imagine, little understood ; but certainly if one 
of their moods was a progression by quarter-tones, 
which we are told was the nature of the enharmonic 

* Collected by Meibomius. 



184 

Waving, in her snowy hand, 

The leafy Bacchanalian wand, 

Which, as the tripping wanton flies, 

Shakes its tresses to her sighs ! 

A youth the while, with loosen'd hair, 

Floating on the listless air, 

Sings, to the wild harp's tender tone, 

A tale of woes, alas! his own; 

And then, what nectar in his sigh, 

As o'er his lip the murmurs die ! 



scale, simplicity was by no means the characteristic 
of their melody ; for this is a nicety of progression, 
of which modern music is not susceptible. 

The invention of the barbiton is, by Athenseus, 
attributed to Anacreon. See his fourth book, where 
it is called to Iv^ec m AwxpzevTos. Neanthes of 
Cyzicus, as quoted by Gyraldus, asserts the same. 
Vide Chabot. in Horat. on the words " Lesboum 
barbiton," in the first ode. 

And then, what nectar in his sigh, 

As o'er his lifi the murmurs die /] Longepierre has 
quoted here an epigram from the Anthologia : 



185 

Surely never yet has been 
So divine, so blest a scene ! 
Has Cupid left the starry sphere, 
To wave his golden tresses here ? 



NtKTOi(> WV TO <PlXnfACC. TO «/&£ fOfACt, ygKTfltgflS ixvn* 

Nuv u-l)va to (piXiif&oc, tso\vv tov i^onci ■sri'nax.as* 
Of which the following may give some idea: 

The kiss that she left on my lip, 
Like a dew-drop shall lingering lie ; 

'Twas nectar she gave me to sip, 
'Twas nectar I drank in her sigh ! 

The dew that distill'd in that kiss, 
To my soul was voluptuous wine ; 

Ever since it is drunk with the bliss, 
And feels a delirium divine ! 

Has Cupid left the starry sfihere, 

To wave his golden tresses here ?~\ The introduction 
of these deities to the festival is merely allegorical. 
Madame Dacier thinks that the poet describes a 
masquerade, where these deities were personated 
by the company in masks. The translation will 
conform with either idea. 



186 

Oh yes ! and Venus, queen of wiles, 
And Bacchus, shedding rosy smiles, 
All, all are here, to hail with me 
The genius of festivity ! 

All, all are here, to hail with me 

The genius of festivity .'] Ka^es, the deity or genius 
of mirth. Philostratus, in the third of his pictures 
(as all the annotators have observed), gives a very 
beautiful description of this god. 



187 



ODE XLIV. 



Buds of roses, virgin flowers, 
Cull'd from Cupid's balmy bowers, 
In the bowl of Bacchus steep, 
Till with crimson drops they weep ! 
Twine the rose, the garland twine, 
Every leaf distilling wine; 
Drink and smile, and learn to think 
That we were born to smile and drink. 



This spirited poem is an eulogy on the rose ; and 
again, in the fifty -fifth ode, we shall find our author 
rich in the praises of that flower. In a fragment of 
Sappho, in the romance of Achilles Tatius, to which 
Barnes refers us, the rose is very elegantly styled 
" the eye of flowers ;" and the same poetess, in 
another fragment, calls the favours of the Muse 
" the roses of Pieria." See the notes on the fifty- 
fifth ode. 

" Compare with this forty -fourth ode (says the 
German annotator) the beautiful ode of Uz die 
Rose." 



188 

Rose ! thou art the sweetest flower 
That ever drank the amber shower; 
Rose ! thou art the fondest child 
Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild ! 
Even the Gods, who walk the sky, 
Are amorous of thy scented sigh. 
Cupid too, in Paphian shades, 
His hair with rosy fillet braids, 
When with the blushing, naked Graces, 
The wanton winding dance he traces. 
Then bring me, showers of roses bring, 
And shed them round me while I sing; 
Great Bacchus ! in thy hallow 'd shade, 
With some celestial, glowing maid, 

When with the blushing, naked Graces, 
The wanton winding dance he traces.] u This sweet 
idea of Love dancing with the Graces, is almost 
peculiar to Anacreon." Degen. 

With some celestial, glowing maid, &c.~\ The epithet 
fix6vx.oX7ro<;, which he gives to the nymph, is literally 
" full-bosomed :" if this was really Anacreon's taste, 
the heaven of Mahomet would suit him in every 
particular. See the Koran, cap. 72. 



189 

While gales of roses round me rise, 
In perfume, sweeten'd by her sighs, 
I'll bill and twine in airy dance, 
Commingling soul with every glance ! 



190 



ODE XLV. 



Within this goblet, rich and deep, 

I cradle all my woes to sleep. 

Why should we breathe the sigh of fear, 

Or pour the unavailing tear ? 

For death will never heed the sigh, 

Nor soften at the tearful eye ; 

And eyes that sparkle, eyes that weep, 

Must all alike be seal'd in sleep ; 

Then let us never vainly stray, 

In search of thorns, from pleasure's way; 



Then let us never vainly stray. 

In search of thorns, from pleasured 'way; fcft:.] I 
have thus endeavoured to convey the meaning of 
t; h tov fiw trXetmfixi i according to Regnier's 
paraphrase of the line: 

E che val, fuor della strada 
Del piacere alma e gradita, 
Vaneggiare in questa vita ? 



191 



Oh ! let us quaff the rosy wave, 
Which Bacchus loves, which Bacchus gave; 
And in the goblet, rich and deep, 
Cradle our crying woes to sleep ! 



192 



ODE XLVI. 

See the young, the rosy Spring, 
Gives to the breeze her spangled wing; 
While virgin Graces, warm with May, 
Fling roses o'er her dewy way ! 

The fastidious affectation of some commentators 
has denounced this ode as spurious. Degen pro- 
nounces the four last lines to be the patch-work of 
some miserable versificator, and Brunck condemns 
the whole ode. It appears to me to be elegantly 
graphical ; full of delicate expressions and luxuriant 
imagery. The abruptness of e l3g ■&<»<; txp»g (pxnvrog is 
striking and spirited, and has been imitated rather 
languidly by Horace ; 

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum 
Soracte 

The imperative th is infinitely more impressive, 
as in Shakspeare, 

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill. 

There is a simple and poetical description of 
Spring, in Catullus's beautiful farewel to Bithynia. 
Carm. 44. 



193 

The murmuring billows of the deep 
Have languish'd into silent sleep; 
And mark ! the flitting sea-birds lave 
Their plumes in the reflecting wave ; 

Barnes conjectures, in his life of our poet, that this 
ode was written after he had returned from Athens, 
to settle in his paternal seat at Teos ; there, in a 
little villa at some distance from the city, which 
commanded a view of the iEgean Sea and the 
islands, he contemplated the beauties of nature and 
enjoyed the felicities of retirement. Vide Barnes, 
in Anac. vita, § xxxv. This supposition, however 
unauthenticated, forms a pleasant association, which 
makes the poem more interesting. 

Monsieur Chevreau says, that Gregory Nazian- 
zenus has paraphrased somewhere this description 
of Spring ; I cannot find it. See Chevreau CEuvres 
Melees. 

" Compare with this ode (says Degen) the verses 
of Hagedorn, book fourth der Fruhling, and book 
fifth der Mai." 

While virgin Graces, ivarm with May, 

Fling roses o'er her deivy <way !~\ De Pauw reads, 
X«p<T#s go^ot /3gvs<r<v, " the roses display their graces." 
This is not uningenious ; but we lose by it the beauty 
of the personification, to the boldness of which Reg- 
nier has objected, very frivolously. 



194 

While cranes from hoary winter fly- 
To flutter in a kinder sky. 
Now the genial star of day 
Dissolves the murky clouds away ; 
And cultur'd field, and winding stream, 
Are sweetly tissued by his beam. 
Now the earth prolific swells 
With leafy buds and flowery bells ; 
Gemming shoots the olive twine, 
Clusters ripe festoon the vine ; 
All along the branches creeping, 
Through the velvet foliage peeping, 
Little infant fruits we see 
Nursing into luxury ! 



The murmuring billows of the deeji 

Have languished into silent sleep,;] It has been 
justly remarked, that the liquid flow of the line aw 
Xvnrett yuXwn is perfectly expressive of the tranquil- 
lity which it describes. 

And cultur'd field, and winding stream, Isfcj] By 
(aqotm ipyocy " the works of men" (says Baxter)? he 
means cities, temples, and towns, which are then 
illuminated by the beams of the sun." 



195 



ODE XLVIL 

'Tis true, my fading years decline, 
Yet can I quaff the brimming wine, 
As deep as any stripling fair, 
Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear; 
And if, amidst the wanton crew, 
I'm call'd to wind the dance's clue, 
Thou shalt behold this vigorous hand, 
Not faltering on the Bacchant's wand, 
But brandishing a rosy flask, 
The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask ! 

But brandishing a rosy Jfask, ^*c] Ae-xa? was a 
kind of leathern vessel for wine, very much in use, 
as should seem by the proverb cc?x.og xm 3vA«m?, 
which was applied to those who were intemperate 
in eating and drinking. This proverb is mentioned 
in some verses quoted by Athenzeus, from the He- 
sione of Alexis. 

The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask!'] Phornutus assigns 
as a reason for the consecration of the thyrsus to 
Bacchus, that inebriety often renders the support of 
a stick very necessary. 



196 

Let those, who pant for Glory's charms, 
Embrace her in the field of arms; 
While my inglorious, placid soul 
Breathes not a wish beyond the bowl. 
Then fill it high, my ruddy slave, 
And bathe me in its honied wave ! 
For though my fading years decay, 
And though my bloom has pass'd away, 
Like old Silenus, sire divine, 
With blushes borrow'd from my wine, 
I'll wanton 'mid the dancing train, 
And live my follies all again ! 



197 



ODE XL VIII. 

When my thirsty soul I steep, 
Every sorrow's lull'd to sleep. 
Talk of monarchs! I am then 
Richest, happiest, first of men; 
Careless o'er my cup I sing, 
Fancy makes me more than king; 
Gives me wealthy Croesus' store, 
Can I, can I wish for more ? 
On my velvet couch reclining, 
Ivy leaves my brow entwining, 
While my soul dilates with glee, 
What are kings and crowns to me ? 

Ivy leaves my brow entwining^ £3*c.] " The ivy was 
consecrated to Bacchus (says Montfaucon), because 
he formerly lay hid under that tree, or, as others 
will have it, because its leaves resemble those of the 
vine." Other reasons for its consecration, and the 
use of it in garlands at banquets, may be found in 
Longepierre, Barnes, &c. Sec. 



198 

If before my feet they lay, 
I would spurn them all away ! 
Arm you, arm you, men of might, 
Hasten to the sanguine fight; 
Let me, oh my budding vine ! 
Spill no other blood than thine. 
Yonder brimming goblet see, 
That alone shall vanquish me. 
Oh ! I think it sweeter far 
To fall in banquet than in war ! 

Arm you, arm you, men of might, 
Hasten to the sanguine Jight ;] I have adopted the 
interpretation of Regnier and others : 

Altri segua Marte fero ; 

Che sol Bacco e '1 mio conforto. 



199 



ODE XLIX. 



When Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy, 
The rosy harbinger of joy, 
Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, 
Thaws the winter of our soul; 



This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the 
same character, are merely chansons a boire. Most 
likely they were the effusions of the moment of con- 
viviality, and were sung, we imagine, with rapture 
in Greece ; but that interesting association, by which 
they always recalled the convivial emotions that 
produced them, can be very little felt by the most 
enthusiastic reader ; and much less by a phlegmatic 
grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dialects 
and particles. 

Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, 

Thaws the winter of our soul; &c. ] Avcctog is the 
title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It 
is a curious circumstance, that Plutarch mistook the 
name of Levi among the Jews for Avji (one of the 
bacchanal cries), and accordingly supposed that they 
worshipped Bacchus. 



200 

When to my inmost core he glides, 
And bathes it with his ruby tides, 
A flow of joy, a lively heat, 
Fires my brain, and wings my feet ! 
'Tis surely something sweet, I think, 
Nay, something heavenly sweet, to drink ! 
Sing, sing of love, let music's breath 
Softly beguile our rapturous death, 
While, my young Venus, thou and I 
To the voluptuous cadence die! 
Then waking from our languid trance, 
Again we'll sport, again we'll dance. 



201 



ODE L. 



When I drink, I feel, I feel, 

Visions of poetic zeal! 

Warm with the goblet's fresh'ning dews, 

My heart invokes the heavenly muse. 



Faber thinks this spurious ; but, I believe, he is 
singular in his opinion. It has all the spirit of our 
author. Like the wreath which he presented in the 
dream, " it smells of Anacreon." 

The form of this ode, in the original, is remark- 
able. It is a kind of song of seven quatrain stanzas, 
each beginning with the line 

*Or zyu zria rov omv. 

The first stanza alone is incomplete, consisting 
but of three lines. 

" Compare with this poem (says Degen) the verses 
of Hagedorn, lib. v. der Wein, where that divine 
poet has wantoned in the praises of wine." 

When I drink, I feel, I feel, 

Visions of poetic zeaW\ " Anacreon is not the only- 
one (says Longepierre), whom wine has inspired 



202 

When I drink, my sorrow's o'er; 
I think of doubts and fears no more; 
But scatter to the railing wind 
Each gloomy phantom of the mind! 
When I drink, the jesting boy 
Bacchus himself partakes my joy; 
And while we dance thro' breathing bowers, 
Whose every gale is rich with flowers, 

with poetry. There is an epigram in the first book 
of the Anthologia, which begins thus: 

Oivog rot ^etpuvTt fisyxg "sritei Ivirtx; oici&a, 

If With water you fill up your glasses, 
You'll never write any thing wise ; 

For wine is the horse of Parnassus, 
Which hurries a bard to the skies ! 

And while we dance through breathing bowers, Isfc.] 
If some of the translators had observed Dr. Trapp's 
caution, with regard to zroXvuvhuv p sv ecvpxts, " Cave 
ne ccelum intelligas," they would not have spoiled 
the simplicity of Anacreon's fancy, by such extra- 



203 

In bowls he makes my senses swim, 
Till the gale breathes of nought but him ! 
When I drink, I deftly twine 
Flowers, begem'd with tears of wine ; 
And, while with festive hand I spread 
The smiling garland round my head, 
Something whispers in my breast, 
How sweet it is to live at rest ! 
When I drink, and perfume stills 
Around me all in balmy rills, 
Then as some beauty, smiling roses, 
In languor on my breast reposes, 

vagant conceptions of the passage. Could our poet 
imagine such bombast as the following ? 

Quand je bois, mon ceil s'imagine 
Que, dans un tourbillon plein de parfums divers, 
Bacchus m' importe dans les airs, 

Rempli de sa liqueur divine. 

Or this : 

Indi mi mena 
Mentre lietro ebro deliro, 
Bacco in giro 

Per la vaga aura serena. 



204 

Venus! I breathe my vows to thee, 
In many a sigh of luxury ! 
When I drink, my heart refines, 
And rises as the cup declines ; 
Rises in the genial flow, 
That none but social spirits know, 
When youthful revellers, round the bowl, 
Dilating, mingle soul with soul ! 
When I drink, the bliss is mine; 
There's bliss in every drop of wine ! 

When youthful revellers, round the bowl, 
Dilating, mingle soul with soul J"] Subjoined to 
Gail's edition of Anacreon, there are some curious 
letters upon the Qtxo-ot of the ancients, which appeared 
in the French Journals. At the opening of the Odeon 
in Paris, the managers of the spectacle requested 
Professor Gail to give them some uncommon name 
for the fetes of this institution. He suggested the 
word " Thiase," which was adopted ; but the literati 
of Paris questioned the propriety of it, and addressed 
their criticisms to Gail through the medium of the 
public prints. Two or three of the letters he has 
inserted in his edition, and they have elicited from 
him some learned research on the subject. 



205 

All other joys that I have known, 
I've scarcely dar'd to call my own; 
But this the Fates can ne'er destroy, 
Till death o'ershadows all my joy! 



206 



ODE LI. 

Fly not thus my brow of snow, 
Lovely wanton! fly not so. 
Though the wane of age is mine, 
Though the brilliant flush is thine, 

Alberti has imitated this ode ; and Capilupus, in 
the following epigram, has given a version of it : 

Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores ? 

Cur fugis e nostro pulchra puella sinu ? 
Ne fugias, sint sparsa licet mea tempora canis, 

Inque tuo roseus fulgeat ore color. 
Aspice ut intextas deceant quoque flore corollaf 

Candida purpureis lilia mista rosis. 

Oh I why repel my soul's impassion'd vow, 
And fly, beloved maid, these longing arms ? 

Is it, that wintry time has strew'd my brow, 
And thine are all the summer's roseate charms ? 

See the rich garland, cull'd in vernal weather, 
Where the young rosebud with the lily glows ; 

In wreaths of love we thus may twine together, 
And I will be the lily, thou the rose ! 



207 

Still I'm doom'd to sigh for thee, 
Blest, if thou couldst sigh for me ! 
See, in yonder flowery braid, 
Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid, 
How the rose, of orient glow, 
Mingles with the lily's snow; 
Mark, how sweet their tints agree, 
Just, my girl, like thee and me ! 

See, in yonder Jlo^very braid, 

CulVd for thee, my blushing maid,'] u In the same 
manner that Anacreon pleads for the whiteness of 
his locks, from the beauty of the colour in garlands, 
a shepherd, in Theocritus, endeavours to recommend 
his black hair : 

K«/ ro iov uiXxv i<?i, KXi k yoxTtx vXKithg 

AAA* S,t477»5 iJT T0<? fiPxVOlf TX tBQU'TX hiyOVTXt." 

Longepierre, Barnes, &c* 



208 



ODE LIL 

Away, away, you men of rules, 
What have I to do with schools ? 
They'd make me learn, they'd make me think, 
But would they make me love and drink ? 
Teach me this ; and let me swim 
My soul upon the goblet's brim ; 

" This is doubtless the work of a more modern 
poet than Anacreon: for at the period when he 
lived rhetoricians were not known." Degen. 

Though the antiquity of this ode is confirmed by 
the Vatican manuscript, I am very much inclined to 
agree in this argument against its authenticity ; for 
though the dawnings of rhetoric might already have 
appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was 
Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century 
after Anacreon. 

Our poet anticipated the ideas of Epicurus, in his 
aversion to the labours of learning, as well as his 
devotion to voluptuousness. Uxa-otv zreuhtxv ^etxccpiot 
Qtvytn, said the philosopher of the garden in a letter 
to Pythocles. 



209 

Teach me this, and let me twine 
My arms around the nymph divine ! 
Age begins to blanch my brow, 
I've time for nought but pleasure now. 
Fly, and cool my goblet's glow 
At yonder fountain's gelid flow; 
I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink 
This soul to slumber as I drink ! 
Soon, too soon, my jocund slave, 
You'll deck your master's grassy grave; 

Teach me this, and let me twine 

My arms around the nymph divine. 1 '] By zpvrn 
AtppoZim; here, I understand some beautiful girl, 
in the same manner that Avxio$ is often used for 
wine. ' ; Golden" is frequently an epithet of beauty. 
Thus in Virgil, " Venus aurea ;" and in Propertius, 
" Cynthia aurea." Tibullus, however, calls an old 
woman, il golden." 

The translation d' Autori Anonimi, as usual, wantons 
on this passage of Anacreon : 

E m'insegni con piu rare 
Forme accorte d'involare 
Ad amabile beltade 
II bel cinto d'onestade. 



210 

And there's an end — for ah! you know 
They drink but little wine below! 

And there's an end-— for ah ! you know 
They drink but little wine below!] Thus the witty 
Mainard : 

La Mort nous guette ; et quand ses lois 
Nous ont enfermes une fois 
Au sein d'une fosse profonde, 
Adieu bons vins et bon repas, 
Ma science ne trouve pas 
Des cabarets en l'autre monde. 

From Mainard, Gombauld, and De Cailly, old 
French poets, some of the best epigrams of the 
English language are borrowed. 



211 

ODE LIIL 

When I behold the festive train 
Of dancing youth, I'm young again ! 
Memory wakes her magic trance, 
And wings me lightly through the dance. 
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid! 
Cull the flower and twine the braid; 
Bid the blush of summer's rose 
Burn upon my brow of snows; 



Bid the blush of summer's rose 

Burn upon my brow of snows; S^c] Licetus, in 
his Hieroglyphica, quoting two of our poet's odes, 
where he calls for garlands, remarks, " Constat igitur 
floreas coronas poetis et potantibus in symposio 
convenire non autem sapientibus et philosophiam 
affectantibus." — " It appears that wreaths of flowers 
were adapted for poets and revellers at banquets, but 
by no means became those who had pretensions to 
wisdom and philosophy." On this principle, in his 
152d chapter, he discovers a refinement in Virgil, 
describing the garland of the poet Silenus as fallen 



212 

And let me, while the wild and young 
Trip the mazy dance along, 
Fling my heap of years away, 
And be as wild, as young as they. 
Hither haste, some cordial soul! 
Give my lips the brimming bowl; 
Oh ! you will see this hoary sage 
Forget his locks, forget his age. 
He still can chant the festive hymn, 
He still can kiss the goblet's brim; 



off; which distinguishes, he thinks, the divine intox- 
ication of Silenus from that of common drunkards, 
who always wear their crowns while they drink. 
This, indeed, is the " labor ineptiarum" of com- 
mentators. 

He still can kiss the goblet's brim; U'c.'] Wine is 
prescribed by Galen, as an excellent medicine for 
old men. " Quod frigidos et humoribus expletos 
calefaciat, &c." but Nature was Anacreon's physician. 

There is a proverb in Eriphus, as quoted by 
Athenseus, which says, " that wine makes an old 
man dance whether he will or not." 



213 

He still can act the mellow raver, 
And play the fool as sweet as ever ! 



Oivov Xiyxtri t«5 yipoi/Tets, a -zroiTZfy 
Tlahtv %opzuv a StXovrccs. 



214 



ODE LIV. 

Me thinks, the pictur'd bull we see 
Is amorous Jove — it must be he ! 
How fondly blest he seems to bear 
That fairest of Phoenician fair ! 
How proud he breasts the foamy tide, 
And spurns the billowy surge aside ! 



" This ode is written upon a picture which repre- 
sented the rape of Europa." Madame Dacier. 

It may perhaps be considered as a description of 
one of those coins, which the Sidonians struck off in 
honour of Europa, representing a woman carried 
across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. 
viii. cap. 23. " Sidonii numismata cum fcemina 
tauri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, cuderunt 
in ejus honorem." In the little treatise upon the 
goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, 
there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedi- 
cated by the Sidonians to Astarte, whom some, it 
appears, confounded with Europa. 

Moschus has written a very beautiful idyll on the 
story of Europa. 



215 

Could any beast, of vulgar vein, 
Undaunted thus defy the main ? 
No : he descends from climes above, 
He looks the God, he breathes of Jove ! 



No : he descends from climes above, 
He looks the God, he breathes of Jove /] Thus 
Moschus : 

Kfv^/i &w Ktct Tfig^s etipxs' xcct ymro rccvyos. 

The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love, 
And a bull's form belied th'almighty Jove. 



216 



ODE LV. 

While we invoke the wreathed spring, 
Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing; 
Resplendent rose, the flower of flowers, 
Whose breath perfumes Olympus' bowers; 

This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. " All 
antiquity (says Barnes) has produced nothing more 
beautiful." 

From the idea of peculiar excellence, which the 
ancients attached to this flower, arose a pretty pro- 
verbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according 
to Suidas, ^x psipvzo&s, " You have spoken roses," 
a phrase somewhat similar to the " dire des fleu- 
rettes" of the French. In the same idea of excellence 
originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of 
the word go^y, for which the inquisitive reader may 
consult Gaulminus upon the epithalamium of our 
poet, where it is introduced in the romance of Theo- 
doras. Muretus, in one of his elegies, calls his 
mistress his rose : 

Jam te igitur rursus teneo, formosula, jam te 
(Quid trepidas?) teneo; jam, rosa, te teneo. 

Eleg. 8. 



217 

Whose virgin blush, of chasten'd dye, 
Enchants so much our mortal eye. 
When pleasure's bloomy season glows, 
The Graces love to twine the rose ; 



Now I again embrace thee, dearest, 
(Tell me, wanton, why thou fearest?) 
Again my longing arms infold thee, 
Again, my rose, again I hold thee. 

This, like most of the terms of endearment in 
the modern Latin poets, is taken from Plautus ; they 
were vulgar and colloquial in his time, and they are 
among the elegancies of the modern Latinists. 

Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the 
beginning of his poem on the Rose : 

Carmina digna rosa est ; vellem caneretur ut illam 
Teius arguta cecinit testudine vates. 

i 
Re8filendent rose! to thee we'll sing;] I have pas- 
sed over the line <rw faectpu uv^n piknw, it is corrupt 
in this original reading, and has been very little im- 
proved by the annotators. I should suppose it to be 
an interpolation, if it were not for a line which 
occurs afterwards : 4>sp* h Qvo-iv teyupiv. 



218 

The rose is warm Dione's bliss, 
And flushes like Dione's kiss ! 
Oft has the poet's magic tongue 
The rose's fair luxuriance sung; 



The rose is warm Dione's bliss, &c~] Belleau, in a 
note upon an old French poet, quoting the original 
here atyaohisiM rxfoppot, translates it, " comme les 
delices et mignardises de Venus." 

Oft has the poet's magic tongue 

The rose's fair luxuriance sung; &c."] The fol- 
lowing is a fragment of the Lesbian poetess. It is 
cited in the Romance of Achilles Tatius, who appears 
to have resolved the numbers into prose. E; roig 
ctvariv viditev o Zsus i7TiSnvizt /icco-tXtoc, to go^ov etv tmv xvhav 
IvctcrttevU yl$ l<?i Kocrpog, fivTOV etyXxia-fiet, 0(p6etA/xog 
uvfoaH), Xuftavoi; t(>v6/}/ace,, xxXXog ocsyomiav. EpaTog am;, 
A<PpoHiiTV)v «rpo|svs<, iviihicn tyvWotg xofAu, zvzi'WTOig sstta,- 
Xoig rpvQuy TO -sriTuAov TO ZityvOM yiXoi. 

If Jove would give the leafy bowers 
A queen for all their world of flowers, 
The rose would be the choice of Jove, 
And blush, the queen of every grove. 
Sweetest child of weeping morning, 
Gem, the vest of earth adorning, 
Eye of flowrets, glow of lawns, 
Bud of beauty, nurs'd by dawns : 



219 

And long the Muses, heavenly maids, 
Have rear'd it in their tuneful shades. 
When, at the early glance of morn, 
It sleeps upon the glittering thorn, 
'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence, 
To cull the timid fiowret thence, 
And wipe with tender hand away 
The tear that on its blushes lay ! 
'Tis sweet to hold the infant stems, 
Yet dropping with Aurora's gems, 
And fresh inhale the spicy sighs 
That from the weeping buds arise. 
When revel reigns, when mirth is high, 
And Bacchus beams in every eye, 
Our rosy fillets scent exhale, 
And fill with balm the fainting gale ! 

Soft the soul of love it breathes, 
Cypria's brow with magic wreaths, 
And, to the Zephyr's warm caresses, 
Diffuses all its verdant tresses, 
Till, glowing with the wanton's play, 
It blushes a diviner ray ! 



220 

Oh! there is nought in nature bright, 
Where roses do not shed their light ! 
When morning paints the orient skies, 
Her fingers burn with roseate dies ; 
The nymphs display the rose's charms, 
It mantles o'er their graceful arms ; 
Through Cytherea's form it glows, 
And mingles with the living snows. 
The rose distils a healing balm, 
The beating pulse of pain to calm ; 
Preserves the cold inurned clay, 
And mocks the vestige of decay. 



When morning paints the orient skies, 

Her Jingers burn 'with roseate dies; t5*c] In the 
original here, he enumerates the many epithets of 
beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by 
the poets, -au,y<x, rm (roQw. We see that poets were 
dignified in Greece with the title of sages: even the 
careless Anacreon, who lived but for love and volup- 
tuousness, was called by Plato the wise Anacreon. 
Fui.t hxc sapientia quondam. 

Preserves the cold inurned clay, &*c] He here 
alludes to the use of the rose in embalming ; and, 
perhaps (as Barnes thinks), to the rosy unguent with 



221 

And when at length, in pale decline, 
Its florid beauties fade and pine, 

which Venus anointed the corpse of Hector. Ho- 
mer's Iliad 4'. It may likewise regard the ancient 
practice of putting garlands of roses on the dead, as 
in Statius, Theb. lib. x. 782. 

hi sertis, hi veris honore soluto 

Accumulant artus patriaque in sede reponunt 
Corpus odoratum. 

Where " veris honor," though it mean every kind 
of flowers, may seem more particularly to refer to 
the rose, which our poet in another ode calls i*/>es 
piquet. We read, in the Hieroglyphics of Pierius, 
lib. lv. that some of the ancients used to order in 
their wills, that roses should be annually scattered 
on their tombs, and he has adduced some sepulchral 
inscriptions to this purpose. 

And mocks the vestige of decay.'] When he says 
that this flower prevails over time itself, he still 
alludes to its efficacy in embalment (tenera poneret 
ossa rosa. Propert. lib. i. ^%. 17), or perhaps to 
the subsequent idea of its fragrance surviving its 
beauty ; for he can scarcely mean to praise for du- 
ration the c nimium breves fiores" of the rose. Phi- 
lostratus compares this flower with love, and says, 
that they both defy the influence of time ; %po*ov h an 



222 

Sweet as in youth its balmy breath 
Diffuses odour e'en in death! 
Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung? 
Attend — for thus the tale is sung. 
When, humid, from the silv'ry stream, 
Effusing beauty's warmest beam, 
Venus appear 'd, in flushing hues, 
Mellow'd by ocean's briny dews; 
When, in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclos'd the nymph of azure glance, 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance ! 

Ep#sj an gc^oc ot^zv. Unfortunately the similitude lies 
not in their duration, but their transience. 

Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath 

Diffuses odour e'en in death /] Thus Casper Bar- 
l?eus, in his Ritus Nuptiarum : 

Ambrosium late rosa tunc quoque spargit odorem, 
Cum fluit, aut multo languida sole jacet. 

Nor then the rose its odour loses, ■ 
When all its flushing beauties die ; 

Nor less ambrosial balm diffuses, 
When withered by the solar eye ! 



223 

Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produc'd an infant flower, 
Which sprung, with blushing tinctures drest, 
And wanton'd o'er its parent's breast. 
The gods beheld this brilliant birth, 
And hail'd the Rose, the boon of earth I 
With nectar drops, a ruby tide, 
The sweetly orient buds they dyed, 

With nectar drops, a ruby tide, 

The sweetly orient buds they dyed, ifc.'] The author 
of the " Pervigilium Veneris" (a poem attributed to 
Catullus, the style of which appears to me to have 
all the laboured luxuriance of a much later period) 
ascribes the tincture of the rose to the blood from the 
wound of Adonis. 

rosas 
Fusse aprino de cruore. 

According to the emendation of Lipsius. In the 
following epigram this hue is differently accounted for: 

Ilia quidem studiosa suum defendere Adonim, 
Gradivus stricto quern petit ense ferox, 

Affixit duris vestigia caeca rosetis, 
Albaque divino picta cruore rosa est. 



224 

And bade them bloom, the flowers divine 
Of him who sheds the teeming vine ; 
And bade them on the spangled thorn 
Expand their bosoms to the morn. 

While the enamour*d queen of joy 
Flies to protect her lovely boy, 

On whom the jealous war-god rushes; 
She treads upon a thorned rose, 
And while the wound with crimson flows, 

The snowy flowret feels her blood, and blushes ! 



225 



ODE LVI. 

He, who instructs the youthful crew 
To bathe them in the brimmer's dew, 
And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses, 
All the bliss that wine possesses ! 
He, who inspires the youth to glance 
In winged circlets through the dance ; 
Bacchus, the god again is here, 
And leads along the blushing year; 



" Compare with this elegant ode the verses of Uz, 
lib. i. die Weinlese." Degen. 

This appears to be one of the hymns which were 
sung at the anniversary festival of the vintage ; one 
of the s5r<A»jvw vpvoi, as our poet himself terms them 
in the fifty -ninth ode. We cannot help feeling a 
peculiar veneration for these relics of the religion of 
antiquity. Horace may be supposed to have written 
the nineteenth ode of his second book, and the twenty- 
fifth of the third, for some bacchanalian celebration 
of this kind. 



226 

The blushing year with rapture teems, 

Ready to shed those cordial streams, 

Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth, 

Illuminate the sons of earth! 

And when the ripe and vermil wine, 

Sweet infant of the pregnant vine, 

Which now in mellow clusters swells, 

Oh ! when it bursts its rosy cells, 

The heavenly stream shall mantling flow, 

To balsam every mortal woe ! 

No youth shall then be wan or weak, 

For dimpling health shall light the cheek ; 



Which, sparkling in the cufi of mirth, 

Illuminate the sons of earth!] In the original vrtrov 
UT6V6V xopi^wv. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet 
here had the nepenthe of Homer in his mind. 
Odyssey, lib. iv. This nepenthe was a something 
of exquisite charm, infused by Helen into the wine 
of her guests, which had the power of dispelling 
every anxiety. A French writer, with very elegant 
gallantry, conjectures that this spell, which made the 
bowl so beguiling, was the charm of Helen's conver- 
sation. See De Mere, quoted by Bayle, art. Helene. 



227 

No heart shall then desponding sigh, 
For wine shall bid despondence fly ! 
Thus — till another autumn's glow 
Shall bid another vintage flow ! 



228 



ODE LVIL 



And whose immortal hand could shed 
Upon this disk the ocean's bed ? 

This ode is a very animated description of a pic- 
ture of Venus on a discus, which represented the 
goddess in her first emergence from the waves. 
About two centuries after our poet wrote, the pencil 
of the artist Apelles embellished this subject, in his 
famous painting of the Venus Anadyomene, the 
model of which, as Pliny informs us, was the beau- 
tiful Campaspe, given to him by Alexander; though, 
according to Natalis Comes, lib. vii. cap. 16, it was 
Phryne who sat to Apelles for the face and breast 
of this Venus. 

There are a few blemishes in the reading of the 
ode before us, which have influenced Faber, Heyne, 
Brunck, Sec. to denounce the whole poem as spurious. 
Non ego paucis offendar maculis. I think it is 
beautiful enough to be authentic. 

And whose immortal hand could shed 

Ufion this disk the ocean's bed?'] The abruptness of 
ecpet ris T0£iv<ri vrovrov, is finely expressive of sudden 
admiration, and is one of those beauties, which we 
cannot but admire in their source, though, by fre- 
quent imitation, they are now become languid and 
unimpressive. 



229 

And, in a frenzied flight of soul 
Sublime as heaven's eternal pole, 
Imagine thus, in semblance warm, 
The Queen of Love's voluptuous form 
Floating along the silv'ry sea 
In beauty's naked majesty! 
Oh ! he has given the captur'd sight 
A witching banquet of delight ; 
And all those sacred scenes of love, 
Where only hallow'd eyes may rove, 
Lie faintly glowing, half-conceal'd, 
Within the lucid billows veil'd. 
Light as the leaf, that summer's breeze 
Has wafted o'er the glassy seas, 

And all those sacred scenes of love, 

Where only halloiv*d eyes may rove, Zsfc] The 
picture here has all the delicate character of the 
semi-reducta Venus, and is the sweetest emblem of 
what the poetry of passion ought to be ; glowing but 
through a viel, and stealing upon the heart from 
concealment. Few of the ancients have attained 
this modesty of description, which is like the golden 
cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, impervious 
to every beam but that of fancy. 



230 

She floats upon the ocean's breast, 
Which undulates in sleepy rest, 
And stealing on, she gently pillows 
Her bosom on the amorous billows. 
Her bosom, like the humid rose, 
Her neck, like dewy- sparkling snows, 
Illume the liquid path she traces, 
And burn within the stream's embraces ! 
In languid luxury soft she glides, 
Encircled by the azure tides, 

Her bosom, like the humid rose, l!?c.~\ " Yohav (says 
an anonymous annotator) is a whimsical epithet for 
the bosom." Neither Catullus nor Gray have been 
of his opinion. The former has the expression, 

En hie in roseis latet papillis. 

And the latter, 

Lo 1 where the rosy-bosom'd hours, &c. 

Crottus, a modern Latinist, might indeed be cen- 
sured for too vague an use of the epithet " rosy," 
when he applies it to the eyes: " e roseis oculis." 



231 

Like some fair lily, faint with weeping, 
Upon a bed of violets sleeping! 
Beneath their queen's inspiring glance, 
The dolphins o'er the green sea dance, 
Bearing in triumph } T oung Desire, 
And baby Love with smiles of fire ! 
While, sparkling on the silver waves, 
The tenants of the briny caves 
Around the pomp in eddies play, 
And gleam along the watery way. 



young Desire, &c.~\ In the original 

l l t utpog, who was the same deity with Jocus among 
the Romans. Aurelius Augurellus has a poem 
beginning 

Invitat olim Bacchus ad coenam suos 
Comon, Jocum, Cupidinem. 

Which Parnell has closely imitated: 

Gay Bacchus, liking Estcourt's wine, 

A noble meal bespoke us ; 
And for the guests that were to dine, 

Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus, &c. 



232 



ODE LVIII. 



When gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion. 
Escapes like any faithless minion, 
And flies me (as he flies me ever), 
Do I pursue him ? never, never ! 



I have followed Barnes's arrangement of this ode; 
it deviates somewhat from the Vatican MS. but it 
appeared to me the more natural order. 

When gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion. 

Escapes like any faithless minion, fc^c] In the 
original 'o ^paTgT//? o xpvcros. There is a kind of pun 
in these words, as Madame Dacier has already 
remarked; for Chrysos, which signifies gold, was 
also a frequent name for a slave. In one of Lucian's 
dialogues, there is, I think, a similar play upon the 
word, where the followers of Chrysippus are called 
golden fishes. The puns of the ancients are, in 
general, even more vapid than our own ; some of 
the best are those recorded of Diogenes. 

And flies me (as he flies me ever J, & > c.'] An 5', un 
pi (pivyu. This grace of iteration has already been 
taken notice of. Though sometimes merely a play- 
ful beauty, it is peculiarly expressive of impassioned 



233 

No, let the false deserter go, 
For who would court his direst foe ? 
But, when I feel my lighten'd mind 
No more by ties of gold confin'd, 
I loosen all my clinging cares, 
And cast them to the vagrant airs. 
Then, then I feel the Muse's spell, 
And wake to life the dulcet shell; 
The dulcet shell to beauty sings, 
And love dissolves along the strings ! 

sentiment, and we may easily believe that it was one 
of the many sources of that energetic sensibility 
which breathed through the style of Sappho. See 
Gyrald. Vet. Poet. Dial. 9. It will not be said that 
this is a mechanical ornament by any one who can feel 
its charms in those lines of Catullus, where he com- 
plains of the infidelity of his mistress, Lesbia. 

Coeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia ilia, 
Ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, 
Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, 
Nunc, fccc. 

Si sic omnia dixisset 1 but the rest does not bear 
citation. 



234 

Thus, when my heart is sweetly taught 
How little gold deserves a thought, 
The winged slave returns once more, 
Arid with him wafts delicious store 
Of racy wine, whose balmy art 
In slumber seals the anxious heart! 
Again he tries my soul to sever 
From love and song, perhaps forever! 
Away, deceiver! why pursuing 
Ceaseless thus my heart's undoing ? 
Sweet is the song of amorous fire ; 
Sweet are the sighs that thrill the lyre ; 
Oh ! sweeter far than all the gold 
The waftage of thy wings can hold. 
I well remember all thy wiles ; 
They wither'd Cupid's flowery smiles, 
And o'er his harp such garbage shed, 
I thought its angel breath was fled ! 
They tainted all his bowl of blisses, 
His bland desires and hallow'd kisses. 



235 

Oh! fly to haunts of sordid men, 
But rove not near the bard again ; 
Thy glitter in the Muse's shade, 
Scares from her bower the tuneful maid; 
And not for worlds would I forego 
That moment of poetic glow, 

They tainted all his bowl of blisses, 

His bland desires and hallow'd kisses.'] Original : 

Tlodav xv7rsXXx Ktpvv}<;. 

Horace has " Desiderique temperare poculum," 
not figuratively, however, like Anacreon, but im- 
porting the love-philtres of the witches. By " cups 
of kisses" our poet may allude to a favourite gallantry 
among the ancients, of drinking when the lips of 
their mistresses had touched the brim : 

" Or leave a kiss within the cup, 
" And I'll not ask for wine." 

As in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus ; 
and Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea, " 'Iv* 
koci zriws otfAte, ma <piXvis" " that you may at once both 
drink and kiss." 



236 

When my full soul, in Fancy's stream, 
Pours o'er the lyre its swelling theme. 
Away, away ! to worldlings hence, 
Who feel not this diviner sense, 
And with thy gay, fallacious blaze, 
Dazzle their unrefined gaze. 



237 



ODE LIX. 

Sabled by the solar beam, 

Now the fiery clusters teem. 

In osier baskets, borne along 

By all the festal vintage throng 

Of rosy youths and virgins fair, 

Ripe as the melting fruits they bear. 

Now, now they press the pregnant grapes, 

And now the captive stream escapes, 

In fervid tide of nectar gushing, 

And for its bondage proudly blushing! 

The title "EntXnvios v^vos, -which Barnes has given 
to this ode, is by no means appropriate. We have 
already had one of those hymns (ode 56), but this is 
a description of the vintage : and the title ug otvov^ 
which it bears in the Vatican MS. is more correct 
than any that have been suggested. 

Degen, in the true spirit of literary scepticism? 
doubts that this ode is genuine, without assigning 
any reason for such a suspicion. " Non amo te, 
Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare ;" but this is far 
from satisfactory criticism. 



238 

While, round the vat's impurpled brim, 
The choral song, the vintage hymn 
Of rosy youths and virgins fair, 
Steals on the cloy'd and panting air. 
Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes, 
The orient tide that sparkling flies ; 
The infant balm of all their fears, 
The infant Bacchus, born in tears ! 
When he, whose verging years decline 
As deep into the vale as mine,' 
When he inhales the vintage-spring, 
His heart is fire, his foot's a wing ; 
And as he flies, his hoary hair 
Plays truant with the wanton air ! 
While the warm youth, whose wishing soul 
Has kindled o'er th' inspiring bowl, 
Impassion'd seeks the shadowy grove, 
Where, in the tempting guise of love, 
Reclining sleeps some witching maid, 
Whose sunny charms, but half display 'd, 
Blush thro' the bower, that, closely twin'd, 
Excludes the kisses of the wind! 



239 

The virgin wakes, the glowing boy 
Allures her to th' embrace of joy; 
Swears that the herbage heaven had spread, 
Was sacred as the nuptial bed ; 
That laws should never bind desire, 
And love was nature's holiest fire ! 
The virgin weeps, the virgin sighs ; 
He kissM her lips, he kiss'd her eyes; 
The sigh was balm, the tear was dew, 
They only rais'd his flame anew. 



Swears that the herbage heaven had sfiread. 
Was sacred as the nufitial bed ; &c.~\ The original 
here has been variously interpreted. Somej in their 
zeal for our author's purity, have supposed, that the 
youth only persuades her to a premature marriage. 
Others understand from the words -sr^ortv yxpav 
ymvdcii, that he seduces her to a violation of the 
nuptial vow. The turn which I have given it is 
somewhat like the sentiment of Heloisa, " amorem 
conjugio, libertatem vinculo prseferre." (See her 
original Letters.) The Italian translations have 
almost all wantoned upon this description ; but that 
of Marchetti is indeed " nimium lubricus aspici." 



240 

And oh ! he stole the sweetest flower 
That ever bloom 'd in any bower ! 

Such is the madness wine imparts, 
Whene'er it steals on youthful hearts. 



241 



ODE LX. 

Awake to life, my dulcet shell, 
To Phoebus all thy sighs shall swell; 
And though no glorious prize be thine, 
No Pythian wreath around thee twine, 
Yet every hour is glory's hour 
To him who gathers wisdom's flower ! 
Then wake thee from thy magic slumbers, 
Breathe to the soft and Phrygian numbers, 

This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been 
written by Anacreon, and it certainly is rather a 
sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed 
to soar. Rut we ought not to judge from this diver- 
sity of style, in a poet of whom time has preserved 
such partial relics. If we knew Horace but as a 
satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell 
such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our 
poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. 
We can perceive in what an altered and imperfect 
state his works are at present, when we find a scho- 
liast upon Horace citing an ode from the third book 
of Anacreon. 



242 

Which, as my trembling lips repeat, 
Thy chords shall echo back as sweet. 
The cygnet thus, with fading notes, 
As down Cayster's tide he floats, 
Plays with his snowy plumage fair 
Upon the wanton murmuring air, 
Which amorously lingers round, 
And sighs responsive sound for sound ! 
Muse of the Lyre ! illume my dream, 
Thy Phoebus is my fancy's theme ; 
And hallow'd is the harp I bear, 
And hallow'd is the wreath I wear, 
Hallow'd by him, the god of lays, 
Who modulates the choral maze! 
I sing the love which Daphne twin'd 
Around the godhead's yielding mind; 
I sing the blushing Daphne's flight 
From this asthereal youth of light; 
And how the tender, timid maid 
Flew panting to the kindly shade, 
Resign'd a form, too tempting fair, 
And grew a verdant laurel there; 



243 

Whose leaves, with sympathetic thrill, 
In terror seem'd to tremble still ! 
The God pursu'd, with wing'd desire; 
And when his hopes were all on fire, 
And when he thought to hear the sigh 
With which enamour'd virgins die, 
He only heard the pensive air 
Whispering amid her leafy hair ! 
But, oh my soul ! no more — no more ! 
Enthusiast, whither do I soar ? 

And how the tender, timid maid 

Flew panting to the kindly shade, &c.~\ Original: 

To ftiv sxTrtQivys xivrpov, 

I find the word xwrpov here has a double force, as 
it also signifies that " omnium parentem, quam 
sanctus Numa, &c. &c" (See Martial.) In order 
to confirm this import of the word here, those who 
are curious in new readings, may place the stop after 
<pii<riac^ thus : 

Ta fjLiv ixvitpivyi xtvrpov 



244 

This sweetly-mad'ning dream of soul 
Has hurried me beyond the goal. 
Why should I sing the mighty darts 
Which fly to wound celestial hearts, 
When sure the lay, with sweeter tone, 
Can tell the darts that wound my own ? 
Still be Anacreon, still inspire 
The descant of the Teian lyre : 



Still be Anacreon, atill insjiire 

The descant of the Teian lyre:~\ The original is 
Tov AvoLxptovrct pipy. I have translated it under the 
supposition that the hymn is by Anacreon ; though 
I fear, from this very line, that his claim to it can 
scarcely be supported. 

Taw AvotKpsovrse, pipis, " Imitate Anacreon." Such 
is the lesson given us by the lyrist ; and if, in poetry, 
a simple elegance of sentiment, enriched by the 
most playful felicities of fancy, be a charm which 
invites or deserves imitation, where shall we find 
such a guide as Anacreon ? In morality too, with 
some little reserve, I think we might not blush to 
follow in his footsteps. For if his song be the lan- 
guage of his heart, though luxurious and relaxed, 
he was artless and benevolent ; and who would not 
forgive a few irregularities, when atoned for by 



245 

Still let the nectar'd numbers float, 
Distilling love in every note ! 



virtues so rare and so endearing? When we think 
of the sentiment in those lines : 

Away I I hate the slanderous dart, 
Which steals to wound th'unwary heart, 

how many are there in the world, to whom we would 
wish to say, Tav AvxK^iovrx pi[*x\ 

Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS. 
whose authority confirms the genuine antiquity of 
them all, though a few have stolen among the number, 
which we may hesitate in attributing to Anacreon. 
In the little essay prefixed to this translation, I 
observed that Barnes has quoted this manuscript 
incorrectly, relying upon an imperfect copy of it, 
which Isaac Vossius had taken ; I shall just mention 
two or three instances of this inaccuracy, the first 
which occur to me. In the ode of the Dove, on the 
words IlT£p0<o-< crvyKxXv-^a, he says, " Vatican MS. 
0wx{«£a>v, etiam Prisciano invito," though the MS. 
reads <rvvKxXv^a y with <?vvKiu,cra interlined. Degen 
too, on the same line, is somewhat in error. In the 
twenty-second ode of this series, line thirteenth, the 
MS. has nviri with at interlined, and Barnes imputes 
to it the reading of re^jj. In the fifty -seventh, line 



246 

And when the youth, whose burning soul 
Has felt the Paphian star's controul, 
When he the liquid lays shall hear, 
His heart will flutter to his ear, 
And drinking there of song divine, 
Banquet on intellectual wine ! 



twelfth, he professes to have preserved the reading 
fo the MS. AXecXvipsvn 2' izr ocvtvi } while the latter has 
etXetXvifAivog 2' esr avru. Almost all the other annotators 
have transplanted these errors from Barnes. 



247 



ODE LXL 



Golden hues of youth are fled; 
Hoary locks deform my head. 
Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, 
All the flowers of life decay. 



The intrusion of this melancholy ode, among the 
careless levities of our poet, has always reminded 
me of the skeletons, which the Egyptians used to 
hangup in their banquet-rooms, to inculcate a thought 
of mortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. 
If it were not for the beauty of its numbers, the 
Teian Muse should disown this ode. Quid habet 
illius, illius qux spirabat amores? 

To Stobseus we are indebted for it. 

Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, 

All the flowers of life decay.] Horace often, with 
feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human 
enjoyments. See book ii. ode xi. and thus in the 
second epistle, book ii. 

Singula de nobis anni prasdantur euntes. 
Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ludum. 



248 

Withering age begins to trace 
Sad memorials o'er my face ; 
Time has shed its sweetest bloom, 
All the future must be gloom ! 
This awakes my hourly sighing; 
Dreary is the thought of dying ! 
Pluto's is a dark abode, 
Sad the journey, sad the road: 



The wing of every passing day 
Withers some blooming joy away ; 
And wafts from our enamour'd arms 
The banquet's mirth, the virgin's charms. 

Dreary is the thought of dying I fcfc.] Regnier, a 
libertine French poet, has written some sonnets on 
the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling 
repentance. Chaulieu, however, supports more 
consistently the spirit of the Epicurean philosopher. 
See his poem, addressed to the Marquis La Farre. 
Plus j'approche du terme et moins je le redoute, Sec. 

I shall leave it to the moralist to make his reflec- 
tions here ; it is impossible to be very Anacreontic 
on such a subject. 



249 

And, the gloomy travel o'er, 
Ah! we can return no more! 



And, the gloomy travel o'er, 

Ah! we can return no more!'] Scaliger, upon 
Catullus's well-known lines, " Qui nunc it per iter, 
&c. remarks, that Acheron, with the same idea, is 
called a.n%ohoq by Theocritus, and iveracfywos by 
Nicander. 



250 



ODE LXII. 

Fill me, boy, as deep a draught, 

As e'er was fill'd, as e'er was quaff'd; 

But let the water amply flow, 

To cool the grape's intemperate glow ; 

Let not the fiery god be single, 

But with the nymphs in union mingle. 

This ode consists of two fragments, which are to 
be found in Athenaeus, book x. and which Barnes, 
from the similarity of their tendency, has combined 
into one. I think this a very justifiable liberty, and 
have adopted it in some other fragments of our poet. 

Degen refers us here to verses of Uz, lib. iv. der 
Trinker. 

But let the water amply Jlow, 

To cool the grafie's intemfierate glow ; fcsV.] It was 
Amphictyon who first taught the Greeks to mix 
water with their wine; in commemoration of which 
circumstance they erected altars to Bacchus and the 
nymphs. On this mythological allegory the follow- 
ing epigram is founded : 



251 

For though the bowl's the grave of sadness, 
Oh! be it ne'er the birth of madness! 
No, banish from our board to-night 
The revelries of rude delight ? 
To Scythians leave these wild excesses, 
Ours be the joy that sooths and blesses ! 
And while the temperate bowl we wreathe, 
Our choral hymns shall sweetly breathe, 
Beguiling every hour along 
With harmony of soul and song! 

Ardentem ex utero Semeles lavere Lyaeum 
Naiades, extincto fulminis igne sacri ; 

Cum nymphis igitur tractabilis, at sine nyinphis 
Candenti rursus fulmine corripitur. 

Pierius Valerianus. 

Which is, non verbum verbo, 

While heavenly fire consum'd his Theban dame, 
A Naiad caught young Bacchus from the flame, 

And dipp'd him burning in her purest lymph ; 
Still, still he loves the sea-maid's chrystal urn, 
And when his native fires infuriate burn, 

He bathes him in the fountain of the nymph. 



252 



ODE LXIII. 



To Love, the soft and blooming child, 
I touch the harp in descant wild ; 
To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers, 
The boy, who breathes and blushes flowers ! 
To Love, for heaven and earth adore him, 
And gods and mortals bow before him ! 



" This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alex- 
andrinus, Strom, lib. vi. and in Arsenius, Collect. 
Grsec." Barnes. 

It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in 
praise of Love. 



253 



ODE LXIV. 

Haste thee, nymph, whose winged spear 
Wounds the fleeting mountain-deer ! 
Dian, Jove's immortal child, 
Huntress of the savage wild! 
Goddess with the sun-bright hair ! 
Listen to a people's prayer, 

This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephaestion. 
There is an anecdote of our poet, which has led 
some to doubt whether he ever wrote any odes of 
this kind. It is related by the Scholiast upon Pindar 
(Isthmionic. od. ii. v. 1. as cited by Barnes). Ana- 
creon being asked, why he addressed all his hymns 
to women, and none to the deities? answered, 
" Because women are my dieties." 

I have assumed the same liberty in reporting this 
anecdote, which I have done in translating some of 
the odes ; and it were to be wished that these little 
infidelities were always considered pardonable in the 
interpretation of the ancients ; thus, when nature is 
forgotten in the original, in the translation " tamen 
usque recurret." 



254 

Turn, to Lethe's river turn, 
There thy vanquish'd people mourn ! 
Come to Lethe's wavy shore, 
There thy people's peace restore* 
Thine their hearts, their altars thine; 
Dian ! must they, must they pine ? 

Turn, to Lethe's river turn, 

There thy vanquish'd people mourn /] Lethe, a river 
of Ionia, according to Strabo, falling into the Mean- 
der : near to it was situated the town Magnesia, in 
favour of whose inhabitants our poet is supposed to 
have addressed this supplication to Diana. It was 
written (as Madame Dacier conjectures) on the 
occasion of some battle, in which the Magnesians 
had been defeated* 



255 



ODE LXV. 

Like some wanton filly sporting, 

Maid of Thrace ! thou fly'st my courting. 

Wanton filly ! tell me why 

Thou trip'st away, with scornful eye, 

And seem'st to think my doating heart 

Is novice in the bridling art ? 

Believe me, girl, it is not so ; 

Thou 'It find this skilful hand can throw 



This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian 
girl, exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very 
frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have 
remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, 
which runs so obviously throughout it, and supposes 
it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging 
to Polycrates: there is more modesty than ingenuity 
in the lady's conjecture. 

Pierius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, 
cites this ode, and informs us, that a horse was the 
hieroglyphical emblem of pride. 



256 

The reins upon that tender form, 
However wild, however warm ! 
Thou 'It own that I can tame thy force, 
And turn and wind thee in the course. 
Though wasting now thy careless hours, 
Thou sport amid the herbs and flowers, 
Thou soon shalt feel the rein's controul, 
And tremble at the wish'd-for goal ! 



257 



ODE LXVI. 

To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine, 
Fairest of all that fairest shine ; 
To thee, thou blushing young desire, 
Who rul'st the world with darts of fire ! 
And oh ! thou nuptial power, to thee 
Who bear' st of life the guardian key; 

This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theo- 
dorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium 
which was sung like a scolium at the nuptial banquet. 

Among the many works of the impassioned 
Sappho, of which time and ignorant superstition 
have deprived us, the loss of her epithalamiums is 
not one of the least that we deplore. A subject so 
interesting to an amorous fancy, was warmly felt, 
and must have been warmly described, by such a 
soul and such an imagination. The following lines 
are cited as a relic of one of her epithalamiums : 

Oa£<s ya^tSps. <r6i pzv S» yecpcs a$ apcco, 
EktstsAss"', e#s<? 3s zrecpfavov ecv apeco. 

See Scaliger, in his Poetics, on the Epithalamium. 



258 

Breathing my soul in fragrant praise, 
And weaving wild my votive lays, 
For thee, O Queen ! I wake the lyre, 
For thee, thou blushing young desire! 
And oh! for thee, thou nuptial power, 
Come and illume this genial hour. 
Look on thy bride, luxuriant boy! 
And while thy lambent glance of joy 
Plays over all her blushing charms, 
Delay not, snatch her to thine arms, 
Before the lovely, trembling prey, 
Like a young birdling, wing away ! 
Oh ! Stratocles, impassion'd youth ! 
Dear to the Queen of amorous truth, 
And dear to her, whose yielding zone 
Will soon resign her all thine own; 
Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye, 
Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh ! 
To those bewitching beauties turn, 
For thee they mantle, flush and burn! 
Not more the rose, the queen of flowers, 
Outblushes all the glow of bowers, 



259 

Than she unrivall'd bloom discloses, 
The sweetest rose where all are roses ! 
Oh ! may the sun, benignant, shed 
His blandest influence o'er thy bed; 
And foster there an infant tree, 
To blush like her, and bloom like thee! 

And foster there an infant tree, 

To blush like her and bloom like thee'~\ Original 
Kv 'nap it? aq %i zritpvKot o-sv in xyva. Passeratius, upon 
the words, " cum castum ami sit florem," in the 
nuptial song of Catullus, after explaining " flos" in 
somewhat a similar sense to that which Gaulminus 
attributes to go^ev, says, " Hortum quoque vocant in 
quo flos ille carpitur, et Grsecis kywov %?i ro tQneetiov 
yvvctiy.w." 

May I remark, that the author of the Greek ver- 
sion of this charming ode of Catullus, has neglected 
a most striking and Anacreontic beauty in those 
verses, " Ut flos in septis, &c." which is the repeti- 
tion of the line, " Multi ilium pueri, multse optavere 
puellse," with the slight alteration of nulli and nullae. 
Catullus himself, however, has been equally injudi- 
cious in his version of the famous ode of Sappho ; 
he has translated yiXuo-sn? ifispeiv, but takes no notice 



260 

of c3v <p&>vxtrug. Horace has caught the spirit of it 
more faithfully : 

Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo 
Dulce loquentem. 



261 



ODE LXVII. 

Ge n t l e youth ! whose looks assume 
Such a soft and girlish bloom, 
Why, repulsive, why refuse 
The friendship which my heart pursues ? 
Thou little know'st the fond controul 
With which thy virtue reins my soul! 
Then smile not on my locks of grey ; 
Believe me, oft with converse gay, 

I have formed this poem of three or four different 
fragments, which is a liberty that perhaps may be 
justified by the example of Barnes, who has thus 
compiled the fifty-seventh of his edition, and the little 
ode beginning 4 ,g p' ^°& Q 6 f °' vov > a ar * / > which he 
has subjoined to the epigrams. 

The fragments combined in this ode, are the 
sixty -seventh, ninety -sixth, ninety -seventh, and hun- 
dredth of Barnes's edition, to which I refer the reader 
for the names of the authors by whom they are pre- 
served. 



262 

I've chain'd the ear of tender age, 
And boys have lov'd the prattling sage ! 
For mine is many a soothing pleasure, 
And mine is many a soothing measure; 
And much I hate the beamless mind, 
Whose earthly vision, unrefin'd, 
Nature has never form'd to see 
The beauties of simplicity ! 
Simplicity, the flower of heaven, 
To souls elect, by nature given! 

And boys have lov'd the prattling sage /] Monsieur 
Chaulieu has given a very amiable idea of an old 
man's intercourse with youth: 

Que cherche par les jeunes gens, 
Pour leurs erreurs plein d'indulgence, 
Je tolere leur imprudence 

En faveur de leurs agremens. 



263 



ODE LXVIII. 

Rich in bliss, I proudly scorn 
The stream of Amalthea's horn! 
Nor should I ask to call the throne 
Of the Tartessian prince my own ; 
To totter through his train of years, 
The victim of declining fears. 
One little hour of joy to me 
Is worth a dull eternity ! 

This fragment is preserved in the third book of 
Strabo. 

Of the Tartessian prince my own-] He here alludes 
to Arganthonius, who lived, according to Lucian, an 
hundred and fifty years, and reigned, according to 
Herodotus, eighty. See Barnes. 



264 



ODE LXIX 



Now Neptune's sullen month appears, 
The angry night-cloud swells with tears; 
And savage storms, infuriate driven, 
Fly howling in the face of heaven I 
Now, now, my friends, the gathering gloom 
With roseate rays of wine illume : 
And while our wreaths of parsley spread 
Their fadeless foliage round our head, 
We'll hymn th'almighty power of wine, 
And shed libations on his shrine ! 



This is composed of two fragments ; the seventieth 
and eighty-first in Barnes. They are both found in 
Eustathius. 



265 



ODE LXX. 



They wove the lotus band to deck, 
And fan with pensile wreath their neck; 
And every guest, to shade his head, 
Three little breathing chaplets spread ; 

Three fragments form this little ode, all of which 
are preserved in Athenxus. They are the eighty- 
second, seventy-fifth, and eighty -third, in Barnes. 

And every guest, to shade his head, 

Three little breathing chaplets spread ;] Longepierre, 
to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which 
garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anec- 
dote of a courtezan, who, in order to gratify three 
lovers, without leaving cause for jealousy with any 
of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after 
her, and put a garland on the brow of the third ; so 
that each was satisfied with his favour, and flattered 
himself with the preference. 

This circumstance is extremely like the subject 
of one of the tensons of Savari de Mauleon, a Trou- 
badour. See L'Histoire Litteraire des Troubadours. 
The recital is a curious picture of the puerile gal- 
lantries of chivalry. 



266 

And one was of Egyptian leaf, 

The rest were roses, fair and brief I 

While, from a golden vase profound, 

To all on flowery beds around, 

A goblet- nymph, of heavenly shape, 

Pour'd the rich weepings of the grape ! 



267 



ODE LXXL 



A broken cake, with honey sweet, 
Is all my spare and simple treat ; 
And while a generous bowl I crown 
To float my little banquet down, 
I take the soft, the amorous lyre, 
And sing of love's delicious fire ! 
In mirthful measures, warm and free, 
I sing, dear maid, and sing for thee ! 



This poem is compiled by Barnes, from Athensus, 
Hephzestion, and Arsenius. See Barnes, 80th. 



268 



ODE LXXII. 

With twenty chords my lyre is hung, 
And while I wake them all for thee, 

Thou, O virgin, wild and young, 
Disport'st in airy levity. 

The nursling fawn, that in some shade 
Its antler'd mother leaves behind, 

Is not more wantonly afraid, 

More timid of the rustling wind ! 

This I have formed from the eighty-fourth and 
eighty -fifth of Barnes's edition. The two fragments 
are found in Athenaeus. 

The nursling fawn, that in some shade 

Its antler 'd mother leaves behind, iP'c.'] In the 
original : 

O? sv yAjj fctpozmg 

" Horned'' here, undoubtedly, seems a strange 
epithet; Madame Dacier however observes, that 



269 

Sophocles,' Callimachus, &c. have all applied it in 
the very same manner, and she seems to agree in 
the conjecture of the Scholiast upon Pindar, that 
perhaps horns are not always peculiar to the males. 
I think we may with more ease conclude it to be a 
license of the poet, " jussit habere puellam cornua." 



270 



ODE LXXIII. 



Fare thee well, perfidious maid! 
My soul, too long on earth delay'd, 
Delay'd, perfidious girl ! by thee, 
Is now on wing for liberty. 
I fly to seek a kindlier sphere, 
Since thou hast ceas'd to love me here ! 



This fragment is preserved by the Scholiast upon 
Aristophanes, and is the eighty-seventh in Barnes. 



271 



ODE LXXIV. 

I bloom'd awhile, in happy flower, 
Till Love approach'd one fatal hour, 
And made my tender branches feel 
The wounds of his avenging steel. 
Then, then I fell, like some poor willow 
That tosses on the wintry billow ! 

This is to be found in Hephsestion, and is the 
eighty -ninth of Barnes's edition. 

I must here apologize for omitting a very, consi- 
derable fragment imputed to our poet, Zuvfa 2'Evpv- 
nvM (ttsAs*, &c. which is preserved in the twelfth 
book of Athenseus, and is the ninety -first in Barnes. 
If it was really Anacreon who wrote it, nil fuit un- 
quam sic impar sibi. It is in a style of gross satire, 
and is full of expressions which never could be grace- 
fully translated. 



272 



ODE LXXV. 

Monarch Love! resistless boy, 
With whom the rosy Queen of Joy, 
And nymphs, that glance ethereal blue, 
Disporting tread the mountain-dew; 
Propitious, oh! receive my sighs, 
Which, burning with entreaty, rise, 
That thou wilt whisper to the breast 
Of her I love thy soft behest; 
And counsel her to learn from thee 
The lesson thou hast taught to me. 
Ah ! if my heart no flattery tell, 
Thou 'It own I've learn 'd that lesson well ! 



This fragment is preserved by Dion Chrysostom. 
Orat. ii. de Regno. See Barnes, 93. 



273 



ODE LXXVI. 

Spirit of Love, whose tresses shine 
Along the breeze, in golden twine; 
Come, within a fragrant cloud, 
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud; 

This fragment, which is extant in Athenaeus (Barnes, 
10 1 ), is supposed, on the authority of Chamseleon, to 
have been addressed to Sappho. We have also a stanza 
attributed to her, which some romancers have sup- 
posed to be her answer to Anacreon. " Mais par 
malheur (as Bayle says), Sappho vint au monde 
environ cent ou six vingt ans avant Anacreon." Nou- 
velles de la Rep.des Lett. torn, ii.de Novembre 1 684. 

The following is her fragment, the compliment of 
which is very finely imagined ; she supposes the 
Muse has dictated the verses of Anacreon : 

Ks<v»v, a %pv<ro6pov& Ma<r ivis-ms 
'Ypvov, ex. ms KctXXiyvvxiKog ie-6Xat$ 
Tviiog #6>p#? ov ctiihi TgpTrvws 
npe<rSyj ecyccvos* 



274 

And, on those wings that sparkling play, 
Waft, oh! waft me hence away ! 
Love ! my soul is full of thee, 
Alive to all thy luxury. 
But she, the nymph for whom I glow, 
The pretty Lesbian, mocks my woe ; 
Smiles at the hoar and silver'd hues 
Which Time upon my forehead strews. 
Alas ! I fear she keeps her charms, 
In store for younger, happier arms ! 



Oh Muse ! who sitt'st on golden throne, 
Full many a hymn of dulcet tone 

The Teian sage is taught by thee ; 
But, Goddess, from thy throne of gold, 
The sweetest hymn thou'st ever told, 

He lately learn'd and sang for me. 



275 



ODE LXXVII. 

Hither, gentle Muse of mine, 
Come and teach thy votary old, 

Many a golden hymn divine, 

For the nymph with vest of gold. 

Pretty nymph, of tender age, 

Fair thy silky locks unfold; 
Listen to a hoary sage, 

Sweetest maid with vest of gold ! 

This is formed of the 124th and 1 19th fragments 
in Barnes, both of which are to be found in Scaliger's 
Poetics. 

De Pauw thinks that those detached lines and 
couplets, which Scaliger has adduced as examples 
in his Poetics, are by no means authentic, but of his 
own fabrication. 



276 



ODE LXXVIII. 

Would that I were a tuneful lyre, 

Of burnish'd ivory fair ; 
Which, in the Dionysian choir, 

Some blooming boy should bear ! 

Would that I were a golden vase, 
And then some nymph should hold 

My spotless frame, with blushing grace, 
Herself as pure as gold ! 



This is generally inserted among the remains of 
Alcseus. Some, however, have attributed it to 
Anacreon. See our poet's twenty-second ode, and 
the notes. 



277 



ODE LXXIX. 



When Cupid sees my beard of snow, 

Which blanching Time has taught to flow, 

Upon his wing of golden light 

He passes with an eaglet's flight, 

And flitting on he seems to say, 

" Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!" 



See Barnes, 173d. This fragment, to which I 
have taken the liberty of adding a turn, not to be 
found in the original, is cited by Lucian in his little 
essay on the Gallic Hercules. 



278 



Cupid, whose lamp has lent the ray, 
Which lightens our meandering way ; 
Cupid, within my bosom stealing, 
Excites a strange and mingled feeling. 
Which pleases, though severely teasing, 
And teases, though divinely pleasing ! 



Barnes, 125th. This, if I remember right, is in 
Scaliger's Poetics. Gail has omitted it in his col- 
lection of fragments. 



279 



Let me resign a wretched breath, 

Since now remains to me 
No other balm than kindly death 

To sooth my misery ! 

This fragment is extant in Arsenius and Hephaes- 
tion. See Barnes (69th), who has arranged the 
metre of it very elegantly. 



280 



I know thou lov'sta brimming measure, 
And art a kindly, cordial host; 

But let me fill and drink at pleasure, 
Thus I enjoy the goblet most. 

Barnes, 72nd. This fragment,' which is quoted by 
Athenxus, is an excellent lesson for the votaries of 
Jupiter Hospitalis. 



281 



I fear that love disturbs my rest, 
Yet feel not love's impassion'd care; 

I think there's madness in my breast, 
Yet cannot find that madness there ! 

This fragment is in Hephsestion. See Barnes, 95th. 
Catullus expresses something of this contrariety 
of feelings: 

Odi et amo ; quare id faciam fortasse requiris ; 
Nescio ; sed fieri sentio, et excrutior. 

Carm. 53. 

I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell 

The cause of my love and my hate, may I die J 

I can feel it, alas ! I can feel it too well, 

That I love thee and hate thee, but cannot tell why. 



282 



From dread Leucadia's frowning steep, 
I'll plunge into the whitening deep : 
And there I'll float, to waves resign'd, 
For Love intoxicates my mind ! 



This also is in Hephsestion, and perhaps is a 
fragment of some poem, in which Anacreon had 
commemorated the fate of Sappho. It is the 123d 
of Barnes. 



283 



Mix me, child, a cup divine, 
Crystal water, ruby wine : 
Weave the frontlet, richly flushing, 
O'er my wintry temples blushing. 
Mix the brimmer — Love and I 
Shall no more the gauntlet try. 
Here — upon this holy bowl, 
I surrender all my soul ! 

This fragment is collected by Barnes from Deme- 
trius Phalareus, and Eustathius, and is subjoined in 
his edition to the epigrams attributed to our poet. 
And here is the last of those little scattered flowers, 
which I thought I might venture with any grace to 
transplant. I wish it could be said of the garland 
which they form, To 3' u£ Avxk^ovto?. 



284 



Among the Epigrams of the Anthologia, 
there are some panegyrics on Anacreon, which 
I had translated, and originally intended as a 
kind of Coronis to the work; but I found, upon 
consideration, that they wanted variety ; a fre- 
quent recurrence of the same thought, within 
the limits of an epitaph, to which they are con- 
fined, would render a collection of them rather 
uninteresting. I shall take the liberty, however, 
of subjoining a few, that I may not appear to 
have totally neglected those elegant tributes to 
the reputation of Anacreon. The four epi- 
grams which I give are imputed to Antipater 
Sidonius. They are rendered, perhaps, with 
too much freedom; but designing a translation 
of all that are on the subject, I imagined it was 
necessary to enliven their uniformity by some- 
times indulging in the liberties of paraphrase. 



285 



AvTiffXTpit Z<2aw8, tig AmKfiotT*. 

0AAAOI tst pcCKOpvp&ogy Aveucptov, ctuQi tri Kicrroq 

xGpx ts teipavav zto^v^hv zriTx'hx' 
nrnyxi & xpyivotvros xvx&\i%owto yxXxxTof, 

iva^ig 2' xtto yns jj^y %toiTO f^idv^ 
otppct Ki roi (ntahiYi ts xxi aszx rif^/tv upviTXtj 

n 2s rig (p&i t uivoig ^oi^tttitxi tv(ppo<rvvx y 
to to (fiiAov $-gp|et5, <£><As, fixfaiTov, oo crvv xotdx 

vtxvtx 0iX7rXa<rx$ y,xi cm i^uti ,3<*v. 

Around the tomb, oh bard divine! 

Where soft thy hallow'd brow reposes, 
Long may the deathless ivy twine, 

And Summer pour her waste of roses ! 



Antipater Sidonius, the author of this epigram, 
lived, according to Vossius, de Poetis Grsecis, in the 
second year of the 169th Olympiad. He appears, 
from what Cicero and Quintilian have said of him, 
to have been a kind of improvvisatore. See Institut. 
Orat. lib. x. cap. 7. There is nothing more known 
respecting this poet, except some particulars about 



286 

And many a fount shall there distil, 
And many a rill refresh the flowers ; 

But wine shall gush in every rill, 
And every fount be milky showers. 

Thus, shade of him, whom Nature taught 
To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure, 

Who gave to love his warmest thought, 
Who gave to love his fondest measure ! 



his illness and death, which are mentioned as curious 
by Pliny and others ; and there remain of his works 
but a few epigrams in the Anthologia, among which 
are these I have selected, upon Anacreon. Those 
remains have been sometimes imputed to another 
poet* of the same name, of whom Vossius gives us 
the following account: " Antipater Thessalonicensis 
vixit tempore Augusti Caesaris, ut qui saltantem 
viderit Pyladem, sicut constat ex quodam ejus epi- 
grammate Avdo\oyix$, lib. iv. tit. u$ ep^jjyp^. At 
eum ac Bathyllumprimos fuisse pantomimos ac sub 
Augusto claruisse, satis notum ex Dione, &c. Sec." 

* Pleraque tamen Thessalonicensi tribuenda videntur. 
Brunck, Lectiones et Emendat. 



287 

Thus, after death, if spirits feel, 

Thou mays't, from odours round thee 
streaming, 

A pulse of past enjoyment steal, 
And live again in blissful dreaming ! 

The reader, who thinks it worth observing, may 
find a strange oversight in Hoffman's quotation of 
this article from Vossius, Lexic. Univers. By the 
omission of a sentence he has made Vossius assert 
that the poet Antipater was one of the first panto- 
mime dancers in Rome. 

Barnes, upon the epigram before us, mentions a 
version of it by Brodxus, which is not to be found in 
that commentator ; but he more than once confounds 
Brodseus, with another annotator on the Anthologia, 
Vincentius Obsopoeus, who has given a translation of 
the epigram. 



288 



Ta xvla, sis tov ccvjov. 

TYMBOS Avaxpnoyjog. o Tyiog sv6oc,dt kvxvo$ 

Evan, yy zreticiM tyyolccln potvm. 
AxfLtqv teipioivli [ttXi^ilxi xptpi B#0vAA<y 

'i^gpet* Koii Kitrtw XivKog odadi Xi6og. 
Ovo' A'ioYis trot ipoilots cc-7rz<rQia-iv' iv V Affipovlog 

£2i>, oAoj uotviig Kwrrpioi S-tpptojspq. 

Here sleeps Anacreon, in this ivied shade; 
Here mute in death the Teian swan is laid. 
Cold, cold the heart, which liv'd but to respire 
All the voluptuous frenzy of desire ! 

the Teian swan is laid."] Thus Horace of 

Pindar : 

Multa Dircxum levat aura cycnum. 

A swan was the hieroglyphical emblem of a poet. 
Anacreon has been called the swan of Teos by 
another of his eulogists. 



289 

And yet, oh Bard! thou art not mute in death, 
Still, still we catch thy lyre's delicious breath; 
And still thy songs of soft Bathylla bloom, 
Green as the ivy round the mouldering tomb! 



Ev rats ui>.iy r oi; lu,ii<u7i vviT^ot^f 

Er$r,Xet{ ir/pr, rtXTetf® 1 fesfet&Vf. 

EvyltitS) Af6oXoy. 

God of the grape ! thou hast betray'd 

In wine's bewildering dream 
The fairest swan that ever play'd 
Along the Muse's stream ! 
The Teian. nurs'd with all those honied boys, 
The young Desires, light Loves, and rose-lip'd Joys ! 

Still, still we catch thy lyre's delicious breath;'] Thus 
Simonides, speaking of our poet : 

MiAwjs y a A*0i pEfArifysrv©* %>.>. m bum 
BxpZiTM 8?i 9»MM EVMfgJ U* u'i^r,. 

1.iu.'j)\>idy ) A»0c>.oy. 

Not yet are all his numbers mute, 

Though dark within the tomb he lies ; 

But living still, his amorous lute 
With sleepless animation sighs! 



290 

Nor yet has death obscured thy fire of love, 
Still, still it lights thee through the Elysian 

grove ; 
And dreams are thine, that bless th'elect 

alone, 
And Venus calls thee e'en in death her own! 



This is the famous Simonides, whom Plato styled 
" divine ;" though Le Fevre, in his Poetes Grecs, 
supposes that the epigrams under his name are 
all falsely imputed. The most considerable of his 
remains is a satirical poem upon women, preserved 

by StobJEUS, -^/oy(^ yvvecixm. 

We may judge from the lines I have just quoted, 
and the import of the epigram before us, that the 
works of Anacreon were perfect in the times of 
Simonides and Antipater. Obsopoeus, the commen- 
tator here, appears to exult in their destruction; and 
telling us they were burned by the bishops and 
patriarchs, he adds, " nee sane id necquicquam fece- 
runt," attributing to this outrage an effect which it 
could never produce. 



291 

Ta ct,v\*y u$ rev etvlov, 

SEINE, roitpov -zs-oipx a/]av Avccxpuovlos ctfAU^Ufy 

Ei ri roi ix. fi&Xm yXfav i[A&»> «(psAo$, 
1,7riKrov spy ctto^jj, Gvnirov yetvog, otypx xsv aw 

'£2$, o Aiovvg-h p,tf&iXi}p.ivos xccri Kaposi 

'0,$ o (piXetKfifla <rvvlpo<pos upptdvtng, 
Mjj^g xctlettpOifAtvos Becx%% 'bi'fcot, riilov VTCtHM 
Tov ysve»j f^i^oxuv %ctpov 6<piiXoptifov. 

Oh ! stranger, if Anacreon's shell 
Has ever taught thy heart to swell 
With passion's throb or pleasure's sigh, 
In pity turn, as wandering nigh, 

The spirit of Anacreon utters these verses from 
the tomb, somewhat " mutatus ab illo," at least in 
simplicity of expression. 

if Anacreon's shell 

Has ever taught thy heart to swell, ijfc."] We may 
guess from the words s* (S&Xm ipm> that Anacreon 
was not merely a writer of billets-doux, as some 
French critics have called him. Amongst these Mr. 



292 



And drop thy goblet's richest tear 
In exquisite libation here ! 
So shall my sleeping ashes thrill 
With visions of enjoyment still. 



Le Fevre, with all his professed admiration, has given 
our poet a character by no means of an elevated 
cast: 

Aussi c'est pour cela que la posterite 
L'a toujours justement d'age en age chante 
Comme un franc gogue-nard, ami de goin-frerie, 
Ami de billets-doux et de badinerie. 

See the verses prefixed to his Poetes Grecs. This 
is unlike the language of Theocritus, to whom 
Anacreon is indebted for the following simple eulo- 
gium : 

Qxffott rov ctvopiavrce, rvrov, a %ivi) 
a-TTH^ei, X.9CI Asy', i7recv g$ oixov ivQns' 

AvxKOiovrog ttxov eiaov iv Tia. 

rav srpce-0' u rt -zripurirov cohcnum. 

zrpoo-faig os %oori roi$ noiciv ctoiro 
tpus urpiKius eAev rov etvo'pec. 



293 

I cannot e'en in death resign 
The festal joys that once were mine, 
When Harmony pursu'd my ways, 
And Bacchus wanton'd to my lays. 

Upon the Statue of Anacreon. 

Stranger ! who near this statue chance to roam, 
Let it awhile your studious eyes engage ; 

And you may say, returning to your home, 
" I've seen the image of the Teian sage, 
" Best of the bards who deck the Muse's page." 

Then, if you add " that striplings lov'd him well," 

You tell them all he was, and aptly tell. 

The simplicity of this inscription has always delighted 
me ; I have given it, I believe, as literally as a verse 
translation will allow. 

And drop thy goblet's richest tear, ifc.'] Thus Si- 
monides, in another of his epitaphs on our poet : 

Kxi uu ecu nyfoi vorepri cpoc-^, y$ o ytpxt^ 
AotpoTtpor uecXxx&v styssv sk rotcsCTuy, 

Let vines, in clustering beauty wreath'd, 
Drop all their treasures on his head. 

Whose lips a dew of sweetness breath'd, 
Richer than vine hath ever shed ! 



294 

Oh! if delight could charm no more, 
If all the goblet's bliss were o'er, 
When fate had once our doom decreed, 
Then dying would be death indeed! 
Nor could I think, unblest by wine, 
Divinity itself divine ! 



And Bacchus wanton' d to my lays, Ifc] The original 
here is corrupted ; the line ag o Aiowtnt, Sec. is unin- 
telligible. 

Brunck's emendation improves the sense, but I 
doubt if it can be commended for elegance. He 
reads the line thus : 

a? o Aiatvvtroio XiXcctrfttvog wren napm. 

See Brunck, Analecta Veter. Poet. Grace, vol. ii. 



295 

Ta ocvlx, tig rot ecvjw. 
*EYAEIS gy (pOtf&tvonrw, kvtiKpiM, eeOXx mmvxz 

iveiu text S^gp5<$, to TioQm tetfy a crv pihieom 
fiuf%n\ ecnxfun vaclx^ ivccppoviov. 

rt\x rt Kott o-xoXtxg awv iK^oXtxg* 

At length thy golden hours have wing'd 
their flight, 
And drowsy death that eyelid steepeth ; 
Thy harp, that whisper'd through each 
lingering night, 
Now mutely in oblivion sleepeth ! 

Thy Iiarfi, that ivhisfier'd through each lingering night, 
fcftr.] In another of these poems, " the nightly- 
speaking- lyre" of the bard is not allowed to be silent 
even after his death. 

OiC, o <Pt\XKpY)T&' Tl KXt 6tV6&X(>VI<; fyiXoKcop©* 

7s-xvvv% l i(&> xpnoi* rnv <ptho7rxi()x %zXvv» 

2,tfAMl2%, U$ AvXKfiOVTX. 

* Brunk has xpa«v ; but Kpvei, the common read- 
ing, better suits a detached quotation. 



296 

She, too, for whom that harp profusely shed 
The purest nectar of its numbers, 

She, the young spring of thy desires, has fled, 
And with her blest Anacreon slumbers ! 

Farewel ! 

To beauty's smile and wine's delight, 
To joys he lov'd on earth so well, 

Still shall his spirit, all the night, 
Attune the wild aerial shell. 

She, the young spring of thy desires, is'c.'] The ori- 
ginal, to n«d«» eecfy is beautiful. We regret that 
such praise should be lavished so preposterously, 
and feel that the poet's mistress Eurypyle would 
have deserved it better. Her name has been told 
us by Meleager, as already quoted, and in another 
epigram by Antipater. 

vypa Jg dipxopivotriv sv Oftftourtv aXov eciihuq, 

ctiQvea-M A*5r«pe§ oivG(&> vnifti xoftvif, 
v)i -zof(^ EvpvTruAjjv TiTpxp/ttvivos . • 

Long may the nymph around thee play, 

Eurypyle, thy soul's desire ! 
Basking her beauties in the ray 

That lights thine eyes' dissolving fire ! 



297 

Farewel ! thou hadst a pulse for every dart 
That love could scatter from his quiver; 

And every woman found in thee a heart, 
Which thou, with all thy soul, didst give 
her! 

Sing of her smile's bewitching power, 
Her every grace that warms and blesses ; 

Sing of her brow's luxuriant flower, 
The beaming glory of her tresses. 

The expression here, uv6(&> xopvig, " the flower of 
the hair," is borrowed from Anacreon himself, as 
appears by a fragment of the poet preserved in Sto- 
bseus : A7rsKitpois ^' cstt«A>j£ xpapcv otv6(&>. 

The purest nectar of its numbers, &c. Thus, says 
Brunck, in the prologue to the Satires of Persius : 

Cantare credas Pegaseium nectar. 

" Melos" is the usual reading in this line, and 
Casaubon has defended it ; but " nectar," I think, is 
much more spirited. 

Farewell thou hadst a pulse for every dart, i$c.~] 
s<pv$ crx,on(&>, " scopus eras natura," not " speculator," 
as Barnes very falsely interprets it. 



298 

Vincentius Obsopceus, upon this passage, contrives 
to indulge us with a little astrological wisdom, and 
talks in a style of learned scandal about Venus, 
" male posita cum Marte in domo Saturni." 

And every woman found in thee a heart, kfc.~\ This 
couplet is not otherwise warranted by the original, 
than as it dilates the thought which Antipater has 
figuratively expressed. 

Critias, of Athens, pays a tribute to the legitimate 
gallantry of Anacreon, calling him, with elegant 
conciseness, ywociKwv ^7ri^o7nv^cu. 

Toy 5s yvvottctwv piXwv ttsrXt^xvrx mor (Shciq, 

'Zvpiroo-iow i^lQurpot,, yvvc&izav 7}7Tipozrf.vpx. 

Teos gave to Greece her treasure, 
Sage Anacreon, sage in loving ; 

Fondly weaving lays of pleasure 

For the maids who blush'd approving! 

* Thus Scaliger, in his dedicatory verses to Ron- 
sard : 

Blandus, suaviloquus, dulcis Anacreon. 

Oh ! in nightly banquets sporting, 

Where's the guest could ever fly him ? 

Oh! with love's seduction courting, 

Where's the nymph could e'er deny him ? 



INDEX. 



ODE FAGS 

1 I saw the smiling bard of pleasure 47 

2 Give me the harp of epic song 51 

3 Listen to the Muse's lyre 53 

4 Vulcan ! hear your glorious task 55 

5 Grave me a cup with brilliant grace 56 

6 As late I sought the spangled bowers .59 

7 The women tell me every day 62 

8 I care not for the idle state 64 

9 I pray thee, by the gods above 67 

10 Tell me how to punish thee 69 

11 Tell me, gentle youth, I pray thee .71 

12 They tell how Atys, wild with love 73 

13 I will; I will ; the conflict's past 75 

14 Count me, on the summer trees 79 

15 Tell me, why, my sweetest dove 86 

16 Thou, whose soft and rosy hues 90 

17 And now, with all the pencil's truth • 98 

18 Now the star of day is high 105 

19 Here recline you, gentle maid 108 

20 One day, the Muses twin'd the hands Ill 

21 Observe when mother earth is dry 115 

22 The Phrygian rock, that braves the storm 118 

23 I often wish this languid lyre 123 

24 To all that breathe the airs of heaven 126 



300 



ODE PAGE 

25 Once in each revolving year. . . 130 

26 Thy harp may sing of Troy's alarms 133 

27 We read the flying courser's name 135 

28 As in the Lemnian caves of fire 137 

29 Yes — loving is. a painful thrift 140 

30 'Tw: s in an airy dream 'of night*. 144 

31 Arm'd with hyacinthine rod.". 146 

32 Strew me a breathing bed of leaves 150 

33 'Twas noon of night, when round the pole 153 

34 Oh thou, of all creation blest 157 

35 Cupid once, upon a bed 161 

36 If hoarded gold possessed a power 165 

37 'Twas night, and many a circling bowl 168 

38 Let lis drain the nectar'd bowl 171 

39 How I love the festive boy 175 

40 I know that Heaven ordains me here 177 

41 When spring begems the dewy scene 179 

42 Yes, be the glorious revel mine 180 

43 While our rosy fillets shed 183 

44 Buds of roses, virgin flowers 187 

45 Within the goblet, rich and deep 190 

46 See the young, the rosy Spring 192 

47 'Tis true my fading years decline 195 

48 When my thirsty soul I steep 197 

49 When Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy 199 

50 When I drink, I feel, I feel 201 

51 Fly not thus my brow of snow 206 

52 Away, away, you men of rules 208 

53 When I behold the festive train 211 

54 Methinks the pictur'd bull we see 214 

55 While we invoke the wreathed Spring 216 



301 

56 He, who instructs the youthful crew 225 

57 And whose immortal hand could shed 228 

58 When gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion 232 

59 Sabled by the solar beam 237 

60 Awake to life, my dulcet shell 241 

61 Golden hues of youth are fled tf 247 

62 Fill me, boy, ;,s deep a draught r-~. . • • .250 

63 To Love, the soft and blooming child 252 

64 Haste thee, nymph, whose winged spear 253 

65 Like a wanton filly sporting 255 

66 1 o thee, the queen of nymphs divine 257 

67 Gentle youth! whose looks assume 261 

68 Rich in bliss, I proudly scorn 263 

69 Now Neptune's sullen month appears 264 

70 They wove the lotus band to deck 265 

71 A broken cake, with honey sweet 267 

72 With twenty chords my lyre is hung 268 

73 Fare thee well, perfidious maid 270 

74 I bloom'd awhile, an happy flower 271 

75 Monarch Love ! resistless boy 272 

76 Spirit of Love, whose tresses shine • . . .273 

77 Hither, gentle muse of mine 275 

78 Would that I were a tuneful lyre 276 

79 When Cupid sees my beard of snow 277 

Fragments, &c 281 




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